


a tower to broadcast all our dark dreams

by coloredink



Series: Yet Another Hannigram S1 AU [2]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cannibalism, Canon-Typical Violence, Domestic, Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-17
Updated: 2017-01-02
Packaged: 2018-08-23 02:09:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 52,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8309680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coloredink/pseuds/coloredink
Summary: "Jack didn't drag me anywhere I didn't want to go. I'm happy to assist with the case, and we've already proven that we can cohabitate without undue distress.""Yeah, well, I still think it's stupid," Will muttered."We do fit the profile," Hannibal said.  "A couple from different social strata; recently cohabiting; homosexual.  That's not what offends you, is it?" Hannibal added.(Or: Hannibal and Will have to pretend to be a couple for a case.  Everything goes downhill from there.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is ostensibly a sequel to [and built a little house that we could live in](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3310220/chapters/7231457), although I don't think you need to read that story first for understanding. But you might want to anyway, because nothing terrible happens in that story, and I can't promise that'll be true for this one.
> 
> All my thanks to [emungere](http://archiveofourown.org/users/emungere) for her reassurance.

"Hello, Will," said Bedelia du Maurier.

She was very...elegant, Will decided. But not in the way that Hannibal was elegant, or even Alana. Hannibal was a peacock, ostentatious in his finery, while Alana's mien possessed warmth and cheer. Dr. Du Maurier had all the cool hauteur of a fine art sculpture. Her office--really just a room in her home, off to the side of the entrance--was light and bright, unlike Hannibal's tall-ceilinged cavern, but the sunlight on her features seemed only to emphasize her likeness to Italian marble.

Will could see why Hannibal liked her.

"Isn't it a conflict of interest?" he asked. "Treating both of us."

Dr. Du Maurier inclined her head. "It's not, technically," she said, "though it is a little unorthodox, and not preferred. But the relationship between Hannibal and myself," here her tone turned dry, "is nothing if not unorthodox. Besides, he tells me that you are, technically, not his patient. That you have conversations, not sessions."

Will ran his tongue over his lips. "Yes."

"Then these are also just conversations." Dr. Du Maurier gave a single nod to the floor between them. "Hannibal wants no appearance of impropriety, and he is concerned. He wishes for you to continue to receive the treatment--or conversations--that he can no longer give you."

Will's hand twitched on his armrest. "I'm not happy about this."

"That's a start," said Dr. Du Maurier. "Why don't you tell me about what's making you unhappy?"

\-----

The only upshot of the situation was that, for the time being, the commute between his therapist and his home was very short.

"Hi honey, I'm home," Will called into the foyer. He wiped his shoes three times before setting foot on the marble.

Hannibal didn't reply. Probably he hadn't even heard Will. This house was too goddamn big. But Will heard the skitter of claws against the tile, and that dismissed his current mutinous feelings.

"Hey guys!" he said as a furry whirlwind attacked his legs. Buster put his front paws up on Will's knees. "Down, boy," he said, to no avail. The other dogs crowded close, tongues lolling. "You probably want to go outside, huh?" 

"Oh, Will," Hannibal said, appearing from around the corner. He was sans jacket and wearing an apron; he'd been in the kitchen, then. "Welcome back. Did you have a good appointment?"

"Yeah, sure," said Will. "Have the dogs been out?"

"Yes, I let them out in the side yard about half an hour ago."

The back yard was better described as a garden: beautifully, perfectly landscaped in a Japanese style, complete with koi pond and a tiny, completely unnecessary arched bridge. Hannibal had not had to request that the dogs not be allowed there. The side yard, however, was mostly grass, with a few fruit trees. It was a good thing it existed, because Will did not relish the idea of walking seven dogs on leashes when they were used to roaming free on Will's property. He still needed to get them all collars and tags.

"Thanks," said Will. "What, um, what's for dinner? Can I help?"

Hannibal smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners in a fashion that never failed to make Will's stomach wiggle. "You certainly may. We're having a leek and rabbit fricassee; you may slice the leeks."

\-----

"I'm sorry again that Jack dragged you into this," Will said, once they were in the kitchen. It turned out that a lot more than leeks needed slicing: there were tiny new potatoes that needed to be cut into coins and esoteric greens that needed to be taken apart and combined into some kind of salad. Will saw no point in cooking this much food for two people; did Hannibal cook like this for himself on a regular basis?

Hannibal was at the stove, browning the rabbit, which released a meaty, savory aroma into the air. "Jack didn't drag me anywhere I didn't want to go. I'm happy to assist with the case, and we've already proven that we can cohabitate without undue distress."

"Yeah, well, I still think it's stupid," Will muttered. His potato coins were hopelessly uneven; hopefully that wouldn't fuck up whatever Hannibal was planning with them.

"We do fit the profile," Hannibal said. "A couple from different social strata; recently cohabiting; homosexual. That's not what offends you, is it?" Hannibal added.

"What? No, no." Will's knife slipped so that his potato piece came out as a wedge instead of a coin. "That's not--no. It's stupid because we don't know how they're choosing them; we fit the profile, but we don't know if there's something missing. And you're a civilian; you shouldn't even have been asked to be part of the investigation like this."

"Perhaps the incident with Tobias Budge provided clarity." Hannibal had his back to Will, so he couldn't have seen Will's startled look, but he continued, "He died as a result of injuries I gave him, but I don't feel bad about that. He was a very bad man." He looked over his shoulder at Will, and that moment of unexpected eye contact sent a frisson through Will's spine. "Doing bad things to bad people makes us feel good."

Will looked back down at the potatoes. His lips pulled apart at the corners. "You shouldn't have to know that."

"I already knew it, Will," said Hannibal. "I had a life before we met. I am not a delicate flower in need of protection from Jack Crawford's boot."

Will couldn't help a little smiling twitch of his lips; Hannibal had told him that before. Clearly Will needed reminding. "Okay, okay, point taken. I'm sorry for the inconvenience, then."

"It's no inconvenience," said Hannibal. He began to remove rabbit pieces from the skillet with a pair of tongs. "I very much look forward to our time together. We have so much to learn about each other."

\-----

"I respect your need for solitude," Hannibal said, when the food was ready. Once all the chopping was done, it actually came together with surprising rapidity: half an hour later, there it was: some kind of rabbit stew, braised potato coins, and a crunchy salad of greens, apple, and celery root. "We needn't dine together. If it makes you more comfortable, you may take your dinner wherever you like."

"Please," Will said with relief that he hoped wasn't too obvious.

"Where would you like to eat?" Hannibal asked.

"I can eat here in the kitchen." Will looked around. There was an armchair and small table in one corner. It wasn't the most comfortable place, but Will hardly wanted to eat in the living room or in the study, where he might spill sauce on a ten thousand dollar rug. Besides, the dogs weren't allowed in the kitchen, which made an accident less likely.

Hannibal raised his eyebrows. "As you wish," he said, and departed with his plate for the dining room, leaving Will's gently steaming dish on the counter.

Will sank into the armchair with relief, his plate in his lap. He dug into the rabbit, which was firm but tender under his fork. Hannibal had stewed them on a bed of leeks, which fell apart as soon as Will touched it. The sauce was surprisingly spicy. Will didn't think he'd ever eaten anything spicy at Hannibal's house before, but he liked spicy food; the food around here often wasn't spicy _enough_ for his taste. Will swirled a potato coin through the sauce and thought about that.

He was used to eating alone, had done so for years. Solo at fried fish restaurants, at diners, at fast food joints; places where nobody looked at you weird or pitied you for taking up one side of a booth. He ate in the car more often than not. At home it was a microwave burrito or a pan-fried fish filet or a bowl of cereal over the sink. A lot of ham sandwiches.

Hannibal, though: he cooked three courses even when it was just him alone. He probably ate in a three-piece suit even when it was just him at the table, poured a glass of wine for himself, used the correct fork although there was no one to judge. Will was sure he hadn't changed anything about his dinner routine tonight, but he was eating alone just one room away, even though there was someone else in the house with him.

What was it that Hannibal had said, when they were on vacation? Table fellowship is a way of forming bonds with friends and neighbors. The word 'companion' comes from words that mean 'one we break bread with.'

Will got up and took his plate to the dining room.

Hannibal looked up, his fork and knife poised over the plate, when Will entered the room.

"May I join you?" Will asked, hesitating with his plate four inches above the glossy table.

"Of course," Hannibal said.

Will set down his plates and utensils with an ungainly clatter. His chair seemed to scrape loudly against the floor. He heard a sound under the table and peered under it to see, to his surprise, Buffy lying there. She wagged her tail at Will.

"Would you like something to drink?" Hannibal asked, and Will noticed the glass of wine by Hannibal's plate.

"Uh, whatever you're having," Will said. Hannibal got up, and Will said, "I can pour it myself, I'm not your guest."

"You don't have a glass," Hannibal said as he disappeared into the kitchen. He returned with a glass and, since he was standing already, poured Will his wine.

"Thanks," Will mumbled, and winced.

"It will take some time for us to develop a routine," Hannibal said as he sat back down. "It's only your second night here."

"It was different at the vacation house," Will said. "It felt like a different planet, like we were different people there. That was home for neither of us. But this is your home, and for me to be here like this, like this is my home now, it doesn't feel real, and it doesn't feel like I fit. It's like trying on someone else's clothes that are too large, and having to walk around in them somehow."

"You do that on a regular basis," said Hannibal. "You walk in others' shoes, in their skins."

"Yes, and I _hate_ it," Will said. "I don't like to do that in my own home, which this is supposed to be, now."

"I understand," said Hannibal. "Tell me: what would make it easier for you?"

Will let his gaze drift out the French doors that led onto the side yard. It was snowing, tiny flakes that probably wouldn't last till morning.

"Ah," said Hannibal. He got up and opened one of the doors, just a little bit, enough that a curl of cold air washed over them.

Will stared. "You don't have to do that."

"I know." Hannibal resumed his seat and his meal. "Does it help?"

It was stupid, but it did. Will always had a window or the back door open in his house, partly because of the dogs and partly because he liked the fresh air. He took his coffee out on the porch in the mornings, feet bare against the wooden planks, and often sat there in the evenings regardless of mosquitos, watching the dogs gambol and snap playfully at each other. And it helped, too, that it was some kind of visible disarray in Hannibal's life; that Will wasn't the only one uprooted and uncomfortable here.

"Thanks," he said, and finished his dinner in much better spirits.

\-----

At least, unlike at the vacation house, they had separate work lives to vanish into after dinner. Of course, Will's work usually involved crime scene photos; if there wasn't some new case Jack had swimming around in his head, there were old ones that Will needed to dump into the heads of FBI trainees: bite marks as a pathology; social exclusion and isolation as a psychopathic trait; unsolved cases such as the Zodiac Killer and the Chesapeake Ripper.

Tonight, though, it was The Bleeder. Will poured himself a glass of whiskey and decided to occupy the coffee table in the living room.

Victim #1: Ben Marlowe, engineering professor at George Washington University. Most likely taken from his home, though there were no signs of forced entry or a struggle. His partner, Victor Truffello, had spent the night away from home after an argument and didn't think it was unusual that Marlowe wasn't there when he got back, assuming that he was at work. He became concerned when Marlowe failed to come home for dinner or respond to any of his phone calls, and reported Marlowe missing the next day. Marlowe was eventually found at the same burial site as:

Victim #2: Terrence White, retired professional football player. Similar scenario: his partner, Edward Macleod, had spent the night away from home after an argument and returned to find White absent. There had been some signs of a struggle, which Macleod had attributed to White's temper. He did not become seriously concerned about White's absence until the next day, when White's church called to say that White had failed to show for ushering duty. Macleod reported White missing, and White's body was eventually found by a couple of hikers at:

Burial Site #1: The hikers, a couple in their 30s, had been walking their dog, who'd gone into a dip in the land and refused to come out, and instead started digging. The dog uncovered a black garbage bag, which turned out to contain the remains of Terrence White; another black garbage bag, nearby, contained the remains of Ben Marlowe. They had both been cut up for easier disposal, but Beverly Katz pronounced that the two men had both died of prolonged blood loss, from dozens of cuts all over their bodies. They had bled out slowly, but "they were unconscious when they died," Katz said. Small mercies. But it was that detail that had given their unsub his nickname.

A Burial Site #2 was assumed, because Mark Ikuhara was still missing, and had been missing for two weeks. Probably The Bleeder had realized his burial site was compromised and taken Ikuhara somewhere else.

"What do you see?" Hannibal asked over Will's shoulder.

Will set his glass down on the edge of the coffee table with a loud clank.

"They're good-looking couples, aren't they," Hannibal observed. He came around the side of the couch to sit beside Will. "Yet another way we fit the profile."

Will snorted. "There are many ways we don't. We're not interracial; the age difference between us isn't nearly as significant"--although Mark Ikuhara and Greg Johnson were only 12 years apart in age, so perhaps that didn't have as much significance to The Bleeder as they thought--"and I'm arguably part of the professional class as well."

"But that's not what's important," said Hannibal. "What does the killer feel is important?"

"He's choosing them carefully," said Will. "He watches them for a while, gets to know their routine. He takes one of them only when he's sure the other's not going to be home for a while, and he keeps them alive because he wants them to suffer. He wants them to die slowly and afraid. But why does he choose only one?"

"Perhaps he wants one of them to live," Hannibal suggested.

\-----

The files contained nothing Will hadn't looked over half a dozen times already. Eventually, Hannibal excused himself to his own work, and Will read a few chapters out of a book he was supposed to review. Winston and Clay came to lie on the rug in front of the fireplace. Buster was an inveterate explorer; Will had barely seen him since they'd moved in. He hoped he wasn't getting into trouble. (But when was Buster not getting in trouble?)

But bedtime couldn't be avoided forever; Will felt his eyelids getting heavy. He sighed, pushed himself off the couch, and turned off the fireplace. He put his glass in the sink. The dogs followed him, but only as far as the stairs: there, a temporary gate forestalled their ascent, but not Will's. Hannibal--very reasonably--did not want the dogs upstairs.

Hannibal had given Will his own bedroom; there was no need for the farce to go _that_ far. The authorities had never found cameras or anything of the sort in the victims' homes. Will paused a moment on the landing. To the right was his bedroom; to the left he could see a faint light that indicated Hannibal had gone to ground as well. He gazed at it for a few seconds, seized by some emotion or memory that he didn't quite recognize, before shuffling toward his own bedroom.


	2. Chapter 2

"Good morning," Hannibal said on his way to the kitchen.

"Good morning," Will mumbled into his mug of coffee. He sat at the table, the side doors open, allowing the dogs to roam in and out.

Hannibal returned with his own coffee. Will's observation, at least over the course of the past two days and their one week vacation, was that Hannibal, left to his own devices, tended to go to bed around midnight and rise between six am and seven. Will went to bed at around the same time, but his schedule was peppered with nightmares and around sunrise he tended to give up and just start the day. Hannibal, thank God, had a French press as well as whatever nightmarish contraption of glass and tubes he'd used to make coffee for Will that one morning that now felt very long ago, when Will had banged on Hannibal's door until it opened to reveal the man tousle-haired and wrapped in a robe.

Hannibal took a seat next to Will. "Nightmares?"

Will shrugged. It had to be written on his face, dark rings under his eyes like he'd been punched. "I've been trying to give them new endings. It hasn't worked."

"That's unfortunate." Hannibal sipped his coffee. "Would you like breakfast?"

"Sure."

Hannibal rose and went back in the kitchen. Will listened to the sound of cupboards opening and closing, the refrigerator door, the sink running. He thought he should go in there and help, but, if he allowed himself to consider this assignment seriously, wasn't this the sort of boyfriend he'd be to Hannibal Lecter? Sitting uselessly in the dining room, waiting for his much more competent boyfriend to deliver him an omelette.

Harvard brought him a stick. Will tugged with him for a bit before ordering him to drop it, and then he threw it back in the side yard. Harvard bolted after it but did not return. Eventually, Hannibal brought Will oatmeal with an over-easy egg on top, drizzled with soy sauce and dusted with small green flakes. Will smiled. "Savory oatmeal."

"I wondered if you'd remember."

Will started to feel better after a few swallows. Maybe he could get used to eating breakfast.

"Have you been dreaming about the case?" Hannibal asked.

Will swallowed a mouthful of oatmeal without chewing. "I dreamed I was buried alive," he said. "Dark and suffocating, my blood in the dirt." He'd woken with the taste of earth in his mouth. "That was the first time. The second time, I was burying myself. I saw myself staring up from a hole in the ground, eyes clouded over, and I shoveled dirt onto my face."

"Yourself as the victim, and then yourself as the perpetrator," Hannibal suggested.

"If I'm going to be dreaming about the case, at least it could get me closer to catching the killer." Will stabbed his spoon into his oatmeal and scraped viciously against the bottom of the bowl.

Hannibal made an affirmative noise. He ate a few bites in contemplative silence before asking, "How did you change the ending of the dream, if you don't mind my asking?"

Will swirled his spoon around the bottom of his bowl, collecting the dregs from the bottom and the sides. "I broke free. I clawed my way to the surface, and that breath of fresh air was so sweet. I wanted to hang on to that feeling forever. The second time, I uncovered my face and I helped myself out. I brushed the dirt off my shirt."

"Beautiful images," Hannibal said, smiling.

"Yeah, well," Will said. "It didn't help."

\-----

"Anything new?" Jack asked.

Beverly, Price, and Zeller shook their heads, lips thin.

"The DNA test for the tissue found under White's nails came back," said Beverly. "It's not a match for anyone in the system. Whoever did this, he doesn't have a criminal record."

"Ditto for the fingerprints we found in the house," said Price. "Not that any of them were very clear prints."

Jack rounded on Will and Hannibal. "It's up to you then, Dr. Lecter, Will, to see if you can lure him out."

"There's not much that we can do; I've already moved in," said Will. "Unless you want us to start making out in public."

"Nothing like that, but be a bit more obvious about it," Jack suggested. "Go out to eat together--Dr. Lecter, the FBI will be happy to reimburse you for any dinners out during this case. Go to the movies, or the opera, whatever it is you'd do together as a couple."

Will tightened his fingers in the crook of his arm. "You want us to go on dates."

"On the FBI's dime," Jack agreed. "Have fun."

He dismissed them not long after that. Will seethed all the way to the car, aware of Hannibal's thoughtful gaze on him as he followed two steps behind. Hannibal didn't say anything until Will had fastened his seatbelt and the doors were locked. "This upsets you."

"Of course it upsets me!" Will exploded, smacking his hand against the car door. "This--this isn't detective work! This is a stupid romantic comedy, except it affects you and it affects me." He brought one hand up to his forehead and rubbed his temple with his thumb. "Your friends--"

"You are my friend, Will," Hannibal interrupted. Will flinched.

"It's going to be awkward." Will massaged his tingling hand. "More awkward than it already is. If we start going out together, to, to the opera or something, your society friends are going to have questions. They're going to wonder what a guy like you is going to do with a guy like me. And then afterward, when I'm gone," Will swallowed, "they're going to have even more questions. They're going to gossip."

"They always do," Hannibal said. He finally started the engine and started them out of the parking lot. "But, as I said, Will, you are my friend, and I'm not ashamed of that. I don't see why that would change if you were my lover."

Will ducked his head. Hannibal always knew exactly what to say to put Will most at his unease.

\-----

"Good afternoon, José," Hannibal greeted.

"Afternoon, Dr. Lecter." José, a heavyset man in his fifties with dark, bushy eyebrows, smiled at Hannibal but let his questioning gaze sweep over Will. Will hunched his shoulders and did his best to fade into the background of the little shop.

_Sacred Wheel_ \--which even Will had to admit was a clever name for a cheese shop--had two refrigerators, a horizontal bank close to the counter where José stood and a vertical one with shelves that stood against the wall. Will could not tell how the cheeses were organized. By region? Texture? Were the more common ones on the shelves and the more expensive ones closer to José, in order to to prevent inventory loss? Did people shoplift cheese? In Will's experience as a cop, people stole anything that wasn't nailed down. He picked up a shrink-wrapped rectangle and turned it over to read the label: Appenzeller. There was also a breed of dog called an Appenzeller; Will wondered if the two were related. The cheese was studded with tiny holes, like a Swiss.

Will put the cheese back on the shelf and wandered over to look at the pantry shelves. Boxes of crackers; bags of tiny toasts; small jars of jams and preserves. Things to pair with cheese. Some of the crackers were five dollars a box, and for not a very large box at that. The toasts were even more expensive. What was wrong with saltines? Or club crackers? Will suddenly found himself overcome with nostalgia. One Christmas they'd spent at his uncle's house in Alabama, and his aunt had set out a block of cream cheese with pepper jelly and a plate of Ritz crackers, for people to snack on before dinner.

"See anything you'd like?" Hannibal asked.

Will shook his head. "Nah. You done here?"

Hannibal now held a small paper bag. He touched Will in the small of the back. "Yes. Are you sure you don't want to sample anything?"

"Nope," said Will, though that brief brush of fingers--he'd barely even felt it--had knocked the breath from his lungs. "Let's go."

They went back to the car. Hannibal gave Will the little paper bag to hold in his lap while Hannibal drove. Usually, probably, there was no one else, and Hannibal would put the bag on the seat. Will peered in the bag and spied several small, paper-wrapped shapes. He didn't recognize the names on any of the stickers.

"José is an insatiable gossip," Hannibal said. "If our killer is any part of the Baltimore social elite, he'll soon know about my new paramour."

He sounded smug while he said it. Will wondered how Hannibal could still be treating this like a joke. "Now what?"

"Now for lunch, I believe," said Hannibal. "And then I have a few patients in the late afternoon and evening, so I'm afraid dinner will be quite late."

"I'll survive," Will said. "I could even make something. How would you like dinner on the table when you get back?"

Hannibal smiled. "You're free to make use of anything you find in the refrigerator or pantry."

Will slouched in his seat. "You're going to regret that," he warned.

"You always surprise me," Hannibal replied.

\-----

Lunch was leftover fricassee, which Hannibal reheated in the oven. Since it would take some time for the food to become hot, Hannibal poured them half-glasses of what remained of last night's bottle of wine. Will was unaccustomed to drinking with lunch, but he found he liked the comfort of having a glass in his hand.

"You know," he said, "the microwave heats things up faster."

Hannibal leaned against the counter. "Anything worth doing is worth taking the time. Good results can be achieved only through love of the process; it is not enough to desire only the end product."

"It's the journey, not the destination?" said Will. He had to watch himself to make sure he didn't drain his wine in his fidgeting.

"If the journey is too dull or too onerous, you'll abandon it long before you reach the destination." Hannibal set his glass on the counter so that he could brace both hands behind him. "You like the end result of your work for the FBI: criminals apprehended before they can do more damage. But the process of getting there is dangerous and deleterious to your health."

"I save lives," Will muttered. "Don't you think the ends justify the means, there?"

"I don't care about the lives you save," said Hannibal. "I care about your life."

Will didn't know how to respond to that.

"How is your head?" asked Hannibal.

Will shrugged. "I hardly notice it anymore."

"Likely exacerbated by lack of sleep," said Hannibal. "I have a suggestion for tonight, if you'll allow me."

"Yeah?" said Will. "What, you'll read me a bedtime story?"

"Hypnotism," said Hannibal.

Will set his glass on the counter before he broke it, even as his face contorted into something that hadn't decided whether it was a scoff or a sneer. "Yeah, no."

"Hypnosis has been found to be helpful to people who suffer from insomnia in achieving deep sleep," said Hannibal. "It can reduce anxiety and stress, both of which are certainly factors in your sleep troubles," he added, pointedly.

Will shook his head. "It won't work on me. I don't believe in hypnosis."

"I'd urge you to forget depictions of it on television shows and movies," said Hannibal. "You are either vulnerable to hypnotic suggestion or you're not. If you're not, well, then nothing will change. If you are, then you will enjoy a good night's rest."

The timer went off. Hannibal slipped on a pair of oven mitts and went to work retrieving their lunch and plating it. Will fetched the flatware and napkins, and, when he turned back around from the drawer, he caught a confusing glimpse of Hannibal smiling at him.

"No hypnotism," Will said when they were seated in the dining room. Two of the dogs were already lying under the table.

"As you wish." Hannibal unfolded his napkin and set it in his lap, as if they were at a fancy dinner out. "I can hardly offer hypnotic suggestion without your consent."

\-----

Hannibal left as soon as the dishes were stacked in the dishwasher--and it shocked Will, a little, that Hannibal had _two_ dishwashers but no microwave--and Will let out a sigh of relief as soon as the door closed behind him. The house seemed to exhale as well. The dogs looked up at Will and wagged their tails.

Yes, actually, now was a good time for that. Will grabbed his car keys and whistled. The dogs leapt to their feet. Buster came dashing in from another room, nails clicking against the tile; he skidded as he rounded the corner from the hallway, nearly crashing into an end table. Will winced. "Take it easy," he told the little terrier. Buster just barked. "Quiet," Will ordered.

As usual, people at the park blinked and stared when Will opened the hatchback and seven dogs came spilling out. "Are you a dog walker?" asked one of them, a young blond woman with a standard poodle.

"Nope," Will said with a tight smile. A few of the dogs had wandered off to smell the tires of other cars in the lot, and two of them were investigating the standard poodle, who was backing up nervously. Will whistled, and the dogs broke away to follow him to the dog park proper, with Clay lingering for one last sniff.

Will's motley crew looked even more motley in comparison to the well-groomed purebreds inside the chain link fence: Golden Retrievers, German Shepherds, Weimaraners, Huskies, and even a long-haired Afghan. Several of them ran up to bump noses with Will's dogs. Will put his hands in his pockets.

"Wow," said a woman standing at the edge of the park. This one was a brunette, with her hair tied back in a runner's ponytail. She had on a puffy down jacket and brightly colored running shoes. "Are they all yours?"

"Yeah," said Will. He gave her the same forced smile he'd given the woman in the parking lot and moved a few steps away. The dogs scampered off. Will leaned against the chain link fence and watched them.

"That's amazing," said the woman. "My husband would never let me have that many dogs."

Will opened his mouth, closed it, and forced out, "Yeah, my, uh," God, what would he call Hannibal? _boyfriend_ seemed so trite, and yet, "he understands that it's, um, a condition of being with me. The dogs are, ah, part of the deal."

_A part of your mental well-being_ , Hannibal had said.

Her face fell, and it took Will a moment to realize that she was disappointed. Disappointed because she thought he was taken and/or gay. "That's sweet," she ventured. "He sounds like a sweet guy."

"Yeah," said Will. "I guess he is."

\-----

Will stared into the refrigerator.

It was oddly….normal. Tupperware of what looked like chopped vegetables. Eggs. Various jars of stuff, half of which were varieties of mustard. Leeks. Some more vegetables in the crisper: Will recognized collard greens. Bacon. Somehow, seeing the bacon was heartening. Even Hannibal Lecter liked bacon.

He contemplated ordering a pizza, just to mess with Hannibal.

Instead, Will pulled a butcher paper packet from the bottom shelf and flipped it over to read the label. Ribeye. Will ran his thumbnail under the tape and unfolded the paper. Sure enough, two beautiful red steaks wrapped in plastic. Well, goddamn: Will knew how to cook steak. He even knew how Hannibal liked his steak. And there were potatoes on the counter. He could make baked potatoes, and bacon, and collard greens.

Will rubbed the steaks with salt and returned them to the refrigerator wrapped in a tea towel, since Hannibal didn't appear to own any paper towels. He shredded the collard greens and fried the bacon. The kitchen was very quiet. Will liked the quiet in Wolf Trap, but it was never really _quiet_ there: there were always the dogs, the sounds of insects and birds, the wind and the trees. But Hannibal's house was as well insulated as a tomb. Will couldn't even hear the sounds of passing traffic--not that there was much, in this wealthy neighborhood of cul-de-sacs.

Will looked down in the pan. The bacon sizzled in a pool of blood instead of fat. It laughed and spat at him. Will yelped; his hand smacked down against the handle of the skillet. Bacon and blood sprayed everywhere, onto Will's arms and the front of his shirt and across the counter, and the pan clattered to the floor. The blood turned out to be hot fat after all. Will cursed and pulled off his shirt to mop at his forearms. His right arm had taken the worst of it. He stuck it under the tap, teeth gritted. The rest of him shook and panted like he'd just shot Garret Jacob Hobbs all over again.

He didn't want to be in the kitchen anymore, but he had to get things cleaned up. Will found soap and a sponge and wiped up the floor. With every swipe of the sponge he expected to see a streak of red ochre left behind, but it remained soap. He left the pan in the sink and retreated to the living room, where he knew there was whiskey.

\-----

"So," Will said over a dinner of steak and baked potatoes and boiled collards (sans bacon), "I might take you up on that hypnotism thing after all."

Hannibal raised his eyebrows, but he finished chewing and swallowing his bite of steak before he spoke. "Your refusal was very adamant earlier today. May I ask what changed?"

"Yeah, well, I thought about it, and--I really do need more sleep," said Will. "There was, uh, a little kitchen accident today."

"Ah," said Hannibal. "I wondered why I smelled bacon, and yet." He gestured eloquently over his plate.

Will had thought he'd aired the place out very well--left the hood fan on for ages, and opened all the windows--but Hannibal had a sense of smell that seemed almost as good as the dogs, who'd gotten to eat the ruined bacon anyway. "Sorry."

"I'm glad you weren't hurt," said Hannibal. "Or more hurt, as the case may be," he added, eyeing the shiny pink weal across the back of Will's right hand. "I'm happy to be of service. Tell me when you'd like to go to bed, and I'll assist you."

\-----

"All hypnosis is self-hypnosis," said Hannibal. "I cannot do to you anything that you do not bring upon yourself, by desiring that it be done."

"That doesn't really bode well, because I still don't think this is going to work," Will mumbled.

"But you desire sleep," said Hannibal. "Now please, make yourself comfortable."

Will wriggled down into the covers. He was glad that it was dark; he felt foolish enough lying in bed with his therapist sitting in a chair beside him, as if Hannibal were about to read him a bedtime story. In some ways, he supposed, he was. But he didn't need to be able to see Hannibal's face while it happened, and he certainly didn't want Hannibal to see his.

"Close your eyes," Hannibal instructed.

"But then how will I see the pendulum," Will muttered.

He could hear the smile in Hannibal's voice as Hannibal said, "Relax your body, Will. Begin with your feet and relax each muscle as you progress upward. Feel the tension slipping out of your body. Have you reached your knees? Continue to relax and sink deeper into a state of calm and serenity. All the tension is draining away, leaving you extremely relaxed. I am going to count from three down to one, Will, and when I arrive at one, you will open your eyes just briefly and close them again. All right? Three...two...one…"

Will opened his eyes to the same dark bedroom as before.

"Now close them again. You should feel as relaxed as you did before, your muscles loose. Relax each individual muscle in your fingers, your hands, moving up your arms. Let any remaining tension in your body just melt away. I am going to count down from three again, and on one you will open your eyes. Three...two...one…"

Will blinked open his eyes and then closed them again. Hannibal's voice was really remarkably soothing; even if Will wasn't suggestible to hypnosis, he could see himself falling asleep just to this: Hannibal droning on about calmness and serenity. Will felt himself unspooling into the puddle of warmth under the covers, like he was joining the heat under the blanket. He wanted to tell Hannibal that he could leave now, he could probably sleep like this, but he couldn't open his mouth to shape the words.

"This time, when I count down from three, you will find that when I reach one, your eyelids are so heavy that you cannot open them."

_Bullshit_ , Will wanted to say, but he really couldn't open his eyes. It was because he was so comfortable and drowsy; he didn't _want_ to open his eyes.

"Now, I want you to visualize a place that gives you calm and peace. See it clearly in your mind's eye, as if you're really there. Color, smells, sounds, touch, taste. Imbue it with life."

Will brought up the river, his favorite fishing spot. Broad; wide; no one around. Trees on either side bathed in the brilliance of autumn. It was early morning, the sky still pale with the last lingering stretches of night, and the birds were singing. The water that streamed around him was cold, but Will's waders were good and he didn't really feel it. He stood facing upstream and cast his line. A smile tugged at his face as he took a deep breath of the cool morning air. It smelled like water and leaves and recent rain.

Hannibal was still talking, but his voice had receded into the background. Will didn't need it anymore. He was at peace, and asleep.


	3. Chapter 3

The filament flashed green in the sunlight, and the fly soared through the air to land on the surface of the water somewhere Will couldn't follow. He hadn't caught anything yet, but he didn't really care; he didn't fish solely for the purpose of catching fish. It was for the way the morning light slanted through the trees; the peace and solitude of this particular stretch of the river; the fresh smell of nature. No one had demands on him here, not even the dogs. He loved them, but they were dogs.

A tug on his line. Will reeled it in; his rod bowed under the weight. He was sweating by the time he brought it close enough to see: the barbed hook through the waterlogged lower lip of a human face. The corpse was bloated from too long in the water, the skin sloughing off around the jowls and ears. Sightless eyes gazed up at Will. The face was Hannibal's.

Will woke with a gasp.

He had kicked off the covers; that did not surprise him. Nor did the sweat on his skin or the dampness of his sheets. What surprised him, after he scrubbed his hands over his face and stole a glance at the clock on the bedside table, was that it was morning. _Actually_ morning, just a few minutes from six o'clock, not the wee hours. He considered lying back down and changing the ending of the dream, as he knew he was supposed to. Maybe he could catch a trout instead. But when he closed his eyes, he saw the hook through Hannibal's lip again.

Will stuffed his feet into his borrowed house slippers--Hannibal's floors that weren't covered in lush imported rugs were all freezing--and made his way downstairs, arms wrapped around his clammy torso. He could smell coffee: Hannibal, wrapped in his own robe, was brewing it using his contraption.

"Good morning," Hannibal said. "How did you sleep?"

"Surprisingly well." Will leaned against the counter.

Hannibal smiled. "Did you have pleasant dreams?"

"At first."

Hannibal poured two cups of coffee and put two sugars in one of them. He pushed that one across the counter toward Will. "Would you call it progress?"

Will took a sip of his coffee. Nice thing about it was, it was never too hot. "I guess I would, actually."

"Then we shall celebrate it as a victory, no matter how small."

They spent a few moments standing in the kitchen, just drinking their coffee. That was something Will appreciated about Hannibal: he talked a lot, but he also knew when to just shut up. Maybe that was something about being a therapist.

Hannibal was the one to break the silence, though: "I have a few morning appointments today, but none in the afternoon, save for one with an art dealer who's come across something he thinks I might like."

Saturdays were not that different from any other day, for Will. There was no Academy in session, and Jack had kept him too busy, as of late, for Will to focus much on research for his next paper. But Jack didn't want him profiling anyone except The Bleeder, right now. For the time being, Will could decide how to spend his time. Left to his own devices, he would probably spend the time reading, tying flies, taking long walks in the woods with his dogs.

What would Will, Hannibal's boyfriend, do?

"Should I come with you to the art dealer?" Will asked.

"If you like," said Hannibal.

"I probably should," Will mused.

"I have never expected any of my partners to be attached at the hip."

"What partners?" said Will. "Who have you ever allowed into your life like this? The opportunity never arose, you said."

Hannibal regarded Will with dark, thoughtful eyes. "All right, then," he said. "I'll return here for lunch, and then we'll go. Unless you'd like to meet me for lunch, outside?"

"No," said Will. "I like your cooking."

\-----

"Well guys," he said to the assembled canines, "I guess it's the park for us this morning. Then you'll be good while Hannibal and I are out in the afternoon."

Clay and Harvard, who knew the word "park," became very excited. The rest of them became excited because Clay and Harvard were excited.

Will hadn't realized, however, that the entire goddamn neighborhood would be at the dog park on a Saturday morning. He almost turned around and drove the dogs to Wolf Trap to walk out by his house. But it was a long drive out and a long drive back, and Hannibal was expecting him for lunch. Will gritted his teeth and pulled into one of the spaces.

"Wow," said a woman with a cocker spaniel. "Are you a dog walker?"

"No," Will said wearily. "They're my dogs."

"Wow." She stuck out her hand. "Linda."

Will shook it politely. "Will."

One young man at the park had a border collie and a frisbee. He was showing off, although to be fair, the dog _could_ jump amazingly high, and only missed the frisbee in one out of eight throws. Will watched with his hands in his jacket pockets and wondered if he could teach Clay or Harvard to do something like that.

"Are you the one with ten dogs?" someone asked him. A man, this time, with a receding hairline and a middle-aged paunch. He had two golden retrievers on leashes.

"Just seven," Will said with a quick, tight smile.

"I grew up with five dogs," the man said wistfully. "It was a lot of fun. I had to work my way up to two with my husband. He's a cat person."

 _Then why did you marry him?_ Will wondered. "It was a condition," Will said. "Hannibal--"

" _Hannibal_?" said the man. Several other heads turned. "Hannibal _Lecter_?"

There could hardly be that many Hannibals in Baltimore, and Will was about to point it out, when Linda, who'd been standing nearby, said, "Wow, he must really love you." Will could barely control his face, and she hastily went on, "He must spend hours picking dog hair off his clothes. Haven't spotted a single one on him."

"Well, it's not like he doesn't have space for seven dogs," the man with the golden retrievers remarked. "Well! Hannibal Lecter settling down at last, and with a man with seven dogs no less. Wait'll Robert hears about this. Can't wait for the next dinner party! C'mon Ethel, c'mon Lucy." The dogs trotted after him, docile as fawns.

"When did you start living together?" Linda asked. "If you don't mind me asking."

Will did mind, but he said, "I just moved in this week."

"Well," Linda offered him a toothy smile, "welcome to the neighborhood."

\-----

"I outed us to some of your neighbors at the dog park today," Will told Hannibal over lunch.

"Oh?" Hannibal paused with his fork over his plate. "How did they take it?"

"Robert's husband was very excited to tell Robert," said Will. "He has two dogs, golden retrievers, named Lucy and Ethel."

Hannibal smiled at his plate. He'd made--shock of shocks--macaroni and cheese for lunch: that, then, explained at least some of the purchases at José's cheese shop. The fanciest mac n cheese that Will had ever seen, snowy white in color, with bacon and scallions mixed in, and dusted with crispy golden bread crumbs. There was also a side salad, which Will ate mostly to be polite. "Gerald and Robert are excellent gossips," Hannibal said. "The news will be all over the neighborhood in no time. Good work."

"They seemed, uh." Will forked another mouthful of macaroni into his mouth and chewed. "Surprised."

"As you said, there's been no one serious," said Hannibal. "I'm not surprised that they're surprised."

"Not by that," said Will. "Well, maybe some of that. But also because of all the dogs. One of them said," he stabbed some salad leaves onto his fork, "that you must really like me."

Hannibal didn't reply at first. When Will dared to look up, it was to see Hannibal looking contemplative. "That bothers you."

"Of course it bothers me," Will muttered.

"That they think I'm smitten with you? Is that so troublesome?"

Will took another mouthful of mac n cheese.

"Is it so unbelievable?" Hannibal asked.

"I don't fit into your life," Will burst out. He put down his fork. "I have too many dogs, I can't figure out your coffee maker before coffee, and the rugs in this house are probably more than my entire net worth. I don't understand how anyone could believe that we're together, and I _will_ humiliate you, if not now, then later." He picked up his dishes to take them into the kitchen. He hadn't finished his salad, but he'd lost his appetite.

Hannibal wasn't so ill-mannered as to grab Will by the wrist, but he did touch Will's forearm as he passed, and that stopped him just as well. "I meant before what I said," he said. "I'm not ashamed to have you as my friend, and there's no reason that would change if we were lovers."

Will didn't look at him or comment. He continued on his way into the kitchen, where he had finally figured out Hannibal's dishwasher system.

\-----

"You don't have to come to the gallery," said Hannibal, but Will replied, "No, no, it's fine, just don't expect me to do a lot of talking."

His fit of bad mood over lunch seemed to have exacerbated his ever-present headache, so Will swallowed a few aspirin before getting in Hannibal's car. He should probably see a doctor about it eventually, but what was the doctor going to tell him? The same things Hannibal--who was a doctor--had already told him. Stop working so much. Be less stressed. Get some sleep.

The sign on the gallery door said "OPEN BY APPOINTMENT ONLY." Hannibal pressed the buzzer, and a man about Hannibal's age, dressed in a mouse-gray cardigan and nonthreatening shoes, came and opened it.

"Dr. Lecter," he said warmly. "Oh, and would this be Mr. Graham?"

"It would," Hannibal said, and Will was forced to shake hands. "Will, this is Mr. Zemeckis."

"Pleased to meet you," Will said with a forced smile. Mr. Zemeckis didn't meet his eyes; he just said "right this way, I saw this and knew immediately who would want it."

The gallery had wood floors, recessed lighting, and muted slate gray walls. It looked and felt very modern, though the paintings themselves were not: landscapes, Chinese brush works, still lifes. Will didn't follow Mr. Zemeckis into whatever inner sanctum he had Hannibal's mystery painting in. He strolled around the gallery with his hands behind his back like he was in a museum, which for all intents and purposes he was. It wasn't as if he could afford any of the art here, or knew what to do with it if he did. Hang it in his house, over the fireplace?

Will came to a painting at the far end of a room and looked at it for a while.

It depicted some Japanese carp in calico colors, from the point of view of someone gazing down into a clear pond. It was raining in the painting, drops throwing concentric ripples on the surface of the water, and a breeze had scattered dried leaves across its surface. The fish, below, were undisturbed. Will felt their peace, even buffeted by the wind and the light rain as he was. He spotted a turtle, off to the side.

"See something you like?" Hannibal asked.

Will jumped.

"Done already?" Will asked.

"Yes; I make up my mind very quickly, and while Mr. Zemeckis is excellent at spotting my taste, I opted not to acquire it at this time. But you seem to have found something."

Will shook his head. "I was just looking around."

Hannibal studied the painting. "This is nice. Shall we take it home?"

"What? No!"

"I'm aware that you've made very little impact on the décor," said Hannibal. "This would help you feel at home."

 _That's because it's not actually my home_ , Will wanted to say, but he was aware that Mr. Zemeckis was still somewhere in the gallery, and all of Hannibal's friends or people or whatever you called them had a tendency to gossip.

"I don't know anything about art," Will said. "I don't think this matches anything in your house. And I don't want you buying anything for me."

"It's your house as well," Hannibal said with a devilish twinkle in his eyes. Will wanted to hit him. Hannibal raised his voice. "Leslie! A word about this painting."

Mr. Zemeckis, it turned out, had been hovering not too far away, no doubt hoping that something like this would happen. Will wished he could fall into the fish pond and drown.

\-----

"I know you have an aversion to gifts," Hannibal said, once they were in the car and safely away from Mr. Zemeckis' prying ears.

"I'll pay you back," Will said. He had a thousand dollars. Normally he wouldn't spend something like that on _art_ , but if he paid Hannibal for it then he could take it home, and Hannibal wouldn't have to suffer what was no doubt a terrible painting to remind him of an awkward period in his life. Will would find somewhere in his house for it.

"There's really no need," Hannibal said.

"It's my painting," said Will. "I'll pay for it." He was holding it in his lap, wrapped in white foam cushion material. "I don't, I'm not, I don't need your charity." He winced. That had sounded like his father. Maybe even a bit of that old Southern drawl had crept into his voice, that he'd worked so hard to get rid of because it made other people take him less seriously.

"Charity is often confused with pity," said Hannibal. "I don't pity you, Will. Far from it."

Something eased a little in Will's chest. That was one of the things that he liked about Hannibal, that he had never pitied Will, not even once. Not when he'd come out to Will's house the first time, so cramped and smelly compared to his own; not when he'd collected Will sleepwalking across his neighbor's yard in the Hamptons. Alana gave Will a look of shocked sadness sometimes; even Jack looked like he was sometimes reconsidering his decision to yank Will out of the classroom. But Hannibal only ever accepted Will as he was. He even claimed to like it.

The blue tape had come free from one corner of the painting. Will picked it loose the rest of the way so that he could tug aside the foam cushion, just a little, and look at the art.

It was the corner that bore the turtle, but it was no longer a turtle. Will could make out the faintest suggestion of antlers against the bottom of the pond. Blood spooled up from the depths, reaching toward the ghostly fish. Some of it leaked out of the canvas, dripping onto Will's pants and the leather car seat.

Will didn't think he'd made any sound, but Hannibal said, "Will?" When Will didn't answer, he pulled over. By then, Will had pulled the foam padding up and taped it shut again with trembling hands. The blood had disappeared, but he could still smell it. It felt tacky all over his hands, exactly like after Abigail Hobbs had been taken away in an ambulance.

"What did you see?" Hannibal asked, quietly.

"Blood," Will whispered. "The stag."

Hannibal's eyebrows drew together. "Stag?"

"I've been seeing." Will squeezed his eyes shut. "I've been seeing things. I feel like I'm losing my mind." His voice cracked on the last word.

Hannibal's hand, cool and dry, came up to cover Will's forehead. Will tried not to lean into it, but it felt so good.

"You do have a fever," Hannibal said. "Let's get you home first; we'll deal with the rest later."

Hannibal pulled away and restarted the car. Will swallowed down the flutter of disappointment and tipped his head back against his headrest.

\-----

Freddie Lounds was waiting for them in the driveway to Hannibal's house. Will groaned.

"I'll take care of this," Hannibal said as he put the car into park.

"I'm not a fainting Victorian damsel," Will groused.

"Jack _did_ chastise me for allowing you to talk to her," Hannibal said with a smile.

"You're not actually my handler!"

"I wouldn't dream of it." Hannibal opened the car door and stepped out. Will, after waiting a moment, did the same, painting tucked under his arm.

Freddie mimed shock at seeing Will get out of the car, eyes wide and mouth a round O. One hand fluttered up to her cheek. "Will Graham, what a surprise! Whatever are you doing here?" 

"Ms. Lounds," said Hannibal. "I believe you're trespassing."

"Would this have anything to do with The Bleeder?" Freddie asked.

"Why would you think that?" Hannibal queried. His tone could have frosted a bed of roses.

"Well, gee, I dunno. Gay couple, class difference, age difference, cohabiting." Freddie ticked the items off on her fingers. "I'd say you fit the profile."

"Many couples fit that profile," said Hannibal. "Us among them."

Freddie's eyebrows hiked up her forehead. "You expect me to believe you're a couple? The flourishing of an office romance?" Her eyes darted from Hannibal to Will and down to the painting under Will's arm. "That you're interior decorating together?"

"Yes," Will said.

"Right," Freddie said, crossing her arms. "Pull the other one, it's got bells on."

Will touched Hannibal with the hand that wasn't holding the painting, to turn his face, and kissed him. It wasn't very good, at least at first; the painting was between them, and Hannibal was surprised. But Hannibal was good at recovering from surprises, because Will found himself being treated to the most appreciative kiss he'd had in...a good long while. The only recent point of comparison he had was Alana Bloom, whose kiss had been amorous and then quickly dampened. Hannibal had no such compunctions, and it was the sort of easy, affectionate kiss that lovers gave each other.

Will couldn't meet Hannibal's eyes afterward; he glared at Freddie instead. "Now leave," he said. "As Hannibal said, you're trespassing."

Freddie's eyebrows looked like they might never come down again. "Okay. Okay. Enjoy your interior decorating, boys!" she called as she sauntered down the driveway.

Will hadn't brought his keys with him, so he was forced to stand on the doorstep as Hannibal opened the door. He still didn't look at Hannibal's face. He didn't look at Hannibal's face as he carefully placed the painting on the table in the entryway, where the dogs couldn't knock it over; as he knelt to greet the dogs; as he shrugged off his wet jacket and kicked off his snow-caked shoes. He might very well have escaped to his room to keep from looking at Hannibal for the rest of the day if Hannibal hadn't said, "Will" and touched his elbow.

The touch was tentative, as if Hannibal wasn't sure he was allowed. Will had never felt that from Hannibal before, and so he turned around. He didn't know what he'd expected to see on Hannibal's face--recrimination? amusement? pity?--but Hannibal only looked the same as he ever did, and very slightly concerned.

"I'm sorry," Will blurted out.

Hannibal's eyebrows drew together. "What for?"

"It was the only thing I could think of," Will said. "She was going to, she could have blown the whole thing. I don't know what I was thinking, I just wanted to--convince her."

"And I believe you succeeded." Hannibal's lips curved in just the faintest suggestion of a smile as he unbuttoned his coat. "That's not something you need to apologize for."

Will averted his eyes from Hannibal's understanding gaze and scratched Chester between the ears. "No, I'm sorry that with my luck, Freddie will write about _that_ and give your friends even more to gossip about, and I continue to be sorry that you're wrapped up in this whole stupid enterprise." He sighed and turned away to go up to his room and stay there for the next hundred years, or at least until dinner.

"You have nothing to be sorry for," Hannibal said. "Depending on how long this endeavor continues, that likely won't be the last time we'll need to display some form of affection in public, and I'm not averse to it at all. Now: where would you like to hang the painting?"

Will had made the joke to Jack about making out in public, but he hadn't expected Jack to take it seriously, and indeed Jack hadn't. Now it crossed his mind that actually, that might not have been a joke. And what did that mean? Holding hands? Grown adults didn't hold hands, did they? No; they engaged in more casual and peremptory kinds of touch: a hand on the knee, perhaps, or in the small of the back. A peck on the lips when parting. Will swallowed.

"In your bedroom, perhaps," Hannibal suggested. "Where you can see it."

"Sure," Will said. "Why not."

\-----

Hannibal hung the painting not above the headboard, but on the wall beside the bed so that Will could see if he were turned on his side. Which he was now, although his eyes were closed.

_Relax your body, Will. Begin with your feet._

Will took a deep breath and let it out through his nose. He focused on unwinding the tension in each muscle in his foot. The foot had so many muscles, and it took him a while. He worked his way up to his calves, and--

Hannibal had smelled good. Will hadn't appreciated it at the time, but he recalled it now: the faint whiff of something Will couldn't identify by name but that was no doubt classy and expensive. Mostly, though, Hannibal had smelled clean, like skin and pressed cloth. Alana had smelled like the end of the day's perfume, and also like soap and shampoo.

Will opened his eyes. He could see the dark rectangle of the painting against the lighter color of the wall, but couldn't make out the details of the painting itself except in his mind's eye. The fish; the rain dappling the surface of the water; the turtle huddled in the corner. Will closed his eyes again and summoned that scene to mind. He heard the gentle patter of the raindrops on the pond and felt its cool mist on his face. The smell of wet earth and leaves rose to his nostrils. Will took a deep breath and felt the muscles of his back unwind while golden carp flickered around his knees.


	4. Chapter 4

Will's chest burned with the need for air.

His vision was clouded and murky, but he could make out the light above and the dark of the silt and mud beneath. There wasn't much between him and the surface, where the unknown danger lurked; he could perceive its shadow. He clutched the gravel and water weeds at the bottom of the pond in an effort to keep from bobbing to the surface. He didn't know what awaited him up there, but he knew he needed to avoid it. But he couldn't hold his breath much longer; already bubbles were escaping between his teeth. Soon he'd open his mouth and the water would rush in.

He broke free of that dream with a gasp, soaked with sweat that had pooled into Hannibal's fine bedlinens. At the house in Montauk, Hannibal had insisted on changing the sheets. This wasn't there, so Will rolled over to the dry side of the bed and shut his eyes again. He tried to imagine that he was floating on the surface of the water, the sun beaming down on him from above, like the few times that he'd gone tubing with his cousins in Missouri.

The next time Will became conscious, he rose slowly from a nightmare where he walked through a snowy forest trying to find the source of the blood that dripped from the tree branches above his head. It was a dark and moonlit night, and Will had his rifle in his hands. The branches were bare of leaves, and there seemed to be nothing up there but more branches. And yet, blood still dripped onto Will's face and into his hair.

The second time, it was close enough to dawn that Will decided to just get up. He could still smell the blood.

Hannibal came downstairs just as Will had plunged the coffee. "Good morning," Hannibal said, accepting the mug that Will handed him across the counter. He was _always_ alert and cheerful in the mornings, which made Will want to smash coffee grounds in his face. "I must admit, it's wonderful to come downstairs in the morning and find coffee ready."

"They make coffeemakers with timers, you know," Will said, just so he could snicker at the way Hannibal all but stuck his nose in the air. "Don't start with how it's blah blah superior," he said. "I think you just like making your life more difficult."

Hannibal opened his mouth, then shut it. His expression acquired a thoughtful cast. "Perhaps. I believe we cherish more the things we have to work for. The fisherman in you can appreciate that," he added.

"Sure," Will acknowledged. "But don't you ever wish that you didn't have to work so hard? That something could just be easy?"

Hannibal sipped his coffee while leaning against the counter. "I'm not sure I'd know what to do with such a thing."

Will gave a little snort of laughter. "So if, say, a million dollars just fell into your lap tomorrow--"

"Perhaps not the best example," said Hannibal, with a meaningful glance at their surroundings.

"Okay, point taken," Will said; the entire kitchen had probably cost more than Will's car when it'd been new. "What about a billion dollars, then. Or a new, a new harpsichord. A rare painting."

"I'd be suspicious of my sudden good fortune," Hannibal said. "Wouldn't you?"

Will tilted his head in acknowledgment. "As my dad used to say, if it's too good to be true--"

"--it usually is," Hannibal finished with a faint smile.

\-----

After breakfast, Will went up to his room to shower and get dressed and found two missed calls from Jack Crawford. He sat on the edge of the bed and returned the call, but it rang through to voicemail. Will tried calling Beverly.

She picked up on the third ring, yelling to be heard over some background noise. "Hello? Hang on!" The clamor faded. Radio; she was in the car, then. "Will? Jack was trying to reach you earlier."

"I know. What happened?"

"We found Mark Ikuhara. Jack wants you to meet us at Quantico for the analysis, see if you get anything off the body."

Will got up and grabbed a shirt out of his closet one-handed. "I doubt it, if it's like the last one. Not much to read from a black garbage bag and a hacked up corpse."

"Yeah, well, it's what Jack wants," Beverly said with a shrug in her voice.

Will sighed. "Sure, I'll log another couple hours of consulting fees. Why not."

He went back downstairs with his hair still wet from the shower and his FBI badge clipped to his shirt pocket. Hannibal was still in his robe and slippers in the kitchen, albeit now apparently reading the news on his tablet. He raised his eyebrows at the sight of Will's badge. "Shall I take the dogs out this morning, then?"

"Shit. Yeah." Will ran his hand through his damp hair. "I was gonna take them to the park…" Hannibal didn't have enough space in his car, even if he wanted to stuff seven dogs in his luxury car.

"Perhaps we should consider hiring a dog walker," Hannibal suggested.

Will made a face. It always seemed dumb to him to pay people to do things that he could and should do himself. But, he had to admit, it made sense--especially if Jack kept sending him off to places like Minnesota and North Carolina to read blood spatter and the echoes of madness.

It didn't escape him that Hannibal had said "we," either. "Sure," Will said, reluctantly. "I can make some phone calls when I get back."

"I'll ask Gerald and Robert for recommendations," said Hannibal.

"Sounds good," said Will. "Okay. I'll see you later."

Will got in the car and drove twenty miles trying to pinpoint the weird, weighty feeling in his gut that conversation had given him. The answer came to him as he waited at a red light: that had been easy. And he didn't know what to do with things that came easy.

\-----

"This one's same as the others," Beverly said. "Hacked up with an axe, stuffed in a large black garbage bag. Only either the ground was too hard wherever he wanted to dig--there's been a freeze--or he was worried about being found again, because he weighed the bag down with rocks and dropped it in the Patapsco River."

"He's getting better," Zeller said. He pointed at the end of what had once been a thigh, where bone showed through puffy, waterlogged flesh. Something had caused the bag to break--perhaps one of the rocks themselves--and a foot had bobbed to the surface, giving the divers somewhere to look. "No hesitation marks, no second try. He cut this straight through with one blow. You didn't see that with Marlowe, with Marlowe there were a lot of bone fragments and cuts where he'd missed landing the blow in the same place twice. He's learning, and he's gotten more confident."

"How did this one die?" Jack asked.

"It's hard to tell because of the degree of degradation," said Beverly, "but I'd say exsanguination, like the others."

"There are traces of skin lacerations, er, where there was enough skin left to tell," said Price.

Jack looked at Will. "You got anything?"

Will shook his head. "Same as before. He's strong, physically able--he can overcome grown men, one of which was a professional athlete. Which means, probably but not exclusively, that he's young, maybe in his twenties or thirties. He's smart, he's sadistic, and as Zeller said, he's getting more confident. He's not stopping anytime soon; he's just hitting his stride."

"Do you know how he's choosing them yet?"

Will shook his head. "You know the victim profile as well as I do."

Jack nodded. "I'm gonna take a couple uniforms out to Johnson, do the notification and ask if there's anything else he might know that can help us. I'd like you to be there."

It was not a request. Will exhaled through his nose and inclined his head. "I'll call Hannibal and tell him I probably won't be home for lunch."

\-----

Greg Johnson's house was similar in square footage to Will's Wolf Trap farmhouse, but had been renovated to within an inch of its life: a gourmet kitchen that probably even Hannibal would have approved of; a soaking tub and a rain shower in the master bathroom; hardwood floors throughout, save for where there was stone tile. A Siamese cat perched in a decorative fashion on the back of the sofa when they entered, but seemed to make itself scarce when they actually came to sit on the furniture, which was of the modern Italian type.

Johnson sat in the armchair, blinking rivulets of tears down his face. It was worse, maybe, that his crying wasn't audible. Jack sat on the nearby couch, while the uniforms stood, looking somewhere between uncomfortable and sympathetic. Will stayed standing over by the fireplace, where Jack or Johnson would have to turn their heads to get a good look at him.

"Thank you for telling me in person," Johnson said at last, between hitching breaths.

"It's the least we could do," said Jack. His voice was very gentle and soothing. "We also wanted to ask if you saw something, heard something maybe, in the past week, that you thought was unusual. Something that you maybe thought to tell us about and then forgot."

Johnson shook his head. "No. We just sat around and hoped that Mark would come back," he waved around his feet; Will saw the Siamese was crouched under his chair, "or that it wasn't The Bleeder that took him. But I knew it was." His voice cracked; he gave a clogged sniff. "Mark and I had even talked about it, after those first two bodies were found, about how we fit the pattern. How awful it'd be if one of us came home to find the other person was gone." Johnson's fingers tightened on his knees. "I shouldn't have left. I, I should have slept on the couch, or in the guest bedroom. I was just _so angry_ that I didn't want to stay in the house anymore. I think," and here Johnson's voice dropped to almost a whisper, "I think when I left, I was even thinking, I hope The Bleeder comes and gets him." Fresh tears welled up in Johnson's eyes at this.

The uniforms shifted their feet. Even Jack looked a little discomfited. Will felt their discomfort like cotton wads pressing in from all sides. He wished Hannibal were here; Hannibal knew how to defuse an awkward situation. Of course, Hannibal often fused situations in the first place, claiming it was therapeutic. But that wasn't what he'd do here. He'd...

Will took a few steps forward and put his hand on Johnson's shoulder. He squeezed with gentle pressure. "This wasn't your fault," he said, and was a little surprised that it didn't come out in Hannibal's accent. "You mustn't blame yourself. That's what the killer wants. Don't give him that satisfaction."

Johnson gazed up at Will, eyes brimming with tears. Will gave him an encouraging smile, and Johnson smiled back and nodded.

"I'm sure that Mark knew you loved him," Will went on. "One fight doesn't negate years of history. The killer took advantage of a moment of weakness, but don't let that moment define you as weak forever."

Johnson gave a clogged sniff. "O-okay. Thank you."

"Agent Crawford is going to give you his card now." Will directed a meaningful look at Jack, who reached into his inside jacket pocket. "If you remember anything--anything at all--that you think could be pertinent to the investigation, don't hesitate to call."

\-----

"Good work in there," Jack said, on their way back to their cars.

Will didn't reply. They came to a stop next to Jack's car, but Jack didn't get in.

"Uncanny, really," Jack went on. He put his hands in his pockets. Will gazed at the trees across the street and said nothing. One of the neighbors was peering out her picture window at the squad car and the strange men.

The uniforms paused on the way back to their car. "That everything, sir?"

"That's it," Jack answered. The uniforms got into their car and drove away. Jack turned back to Will. "He took the lower-class half of the couple this time. Do you think that means anything?"

"He takes the one left in the house, Jack," Will said. "Usually it's the guy who actually owns the house who stays; it's his house, he feels proprietary. If anyone storms out, it's the one who moved in later. But in this case, Johnson left his own house, because he's the storming-out type."

"So it's not a class thing," said Jack.

"It's a class thing because he picks couples with a class disparity," Will said. "But it doesn't matter to him which one of them dies, no."

"Hmmm," said Jack. "What do you think it means?"

"That he's a lunatic." Will glanced at his watch. "I'm gonna go."

"How're things going with Dr. Lecter?" Jack asked.

Will gave Jack a sharp look. "Fine."

"You've made TattleCrime," said Jack. "Not a headline, presumably because you're not gory enough. A column."

Fuck. "Fuck," Will said.

"Normally I'd tell you to be more careful about the press," said Jack. "But in this case it's working to our favor. We need The Bleeder to get wind of this."

"Oh, so we like TattleCrime now?" Will sneered. "It's fine for her to snoop around in my life as long as it convinces the public that Hannibal and I like to hold hands at the symphony?"

Jack regarded Will with a placid, thoughtful eye. "I notice you're calling him Hannibal now."

Will stared. "We're friends, Jack."

"That's good," Jack said neutrally. "I'm glad to hear that."

\-----

"I got to be Hannibal Lecter today," Will told Hannibal over dinner, just to see how Hannibal would react.

Hannibal didn't let him down: he raised his eyebrows, and his utensils paused over the plate for a moment before he resumed cutting up his porkchop. "What does that mean?"

Will told him about the visit to Greg Johnson. Hannibal seemed to listen with his whole body; Will thought of it as his therapist look. It used to unnerve Will, who now realized that he'd been unnerved by how much he liked it.

"That does sound like something I'd say," Hannibal admitted. "I don't know whether to congratulate you or be concerned."

"You're not taking over my head, if that's what you're concerned about," Will replied as he sawed into his own meat.

"Perhaps I'm concerned about the sanctity of mine."

"Ha!" Will smirked. "You said you were looking forward to us getting to know each other better. Did you only mean you getting to know me better?"

Hannibal smiled in a way that suggested Will was being very funny rather than challenging and mildly abrasive. "It's funny--Bedelia said to me not that long ago that those of us who spend a lot of time building walls naturally want to see if someone is clever enough to get over them."

"And you think I can?"

"It's your specialty, isn't it? Getting over walls. To the extent that you're sometimes trapped behind them, unable to return." Hannibal's tone had turned gentle by the end of the statement, but that didn't keep Will's grip from tightening around his silverware.

Hannibal had said that the first time they met, and it had angered Will then because it was true. But it was equally true that now, months later, despite continued close contact, Hannibal wasn't taking over Will's head, or, if he was, it was in a good way that helped Will sleep better at night--maybe even helped Will build some forts in the bone arena of his skull, after all.

"Don't turn this back on me," Will said at last. "What skeletons in your skull are you worried that I'll find?"

Hannibal gave Will a faint smile. "In a way, I'm looking forward to you finding that out on your own."

\-----

A cold, damp nose was trying to get Will's attention, blowing hot, foul breath over his face. It pawed at his hair and his shoulder. Will, in bed with his covers drawn over his shoulders, kept his eyes closed and batted at the dog. His hand struck feathers, not fur. Will opened his eyes.

The stag gazed down at him with large, mournful eyes. It nudged him one more time before turning and walking away, its hooves striking loudly against the floor of Will's Wolf Trap home. Will swung his legs over the side of the bed and followed the stag out the front door.

A gleaming, pale wall stretched across the front yard. He couldn't see the end of his driveway, and he could see only the tops of the trees. Will paused on the porch, but the stag leapt down as light as a butterfly and continued at a slow canter. It tucked its front legs below its chest and sailed over the wall with a flick of its feathered tail. Will followed at his own shambling pace, toes curling in what remained of yesterday's snow.

Close up, the wall turned out to have plenty of toe and handholds. It was made of bones: skulls and ribs and phalanges, joined together like a macabre beaver dam. Will wedged the ball of his foot into a crevice formed between two pelvic bones and reached up to grasp a jutting rib. It held, and Will hauled himself up hand by hand, foot by foot. The farther up he got, the more he could make out some insistent noise, throbbing and getting louder. It sounded like his own heartbeat in his ears and smelled like blood.

"Will."

Will teetered for a moment, one arm pinwheeling out in space. A large, strong hand reached down and closed around his flailing wrist. Will looked up.

"Will."

Hannibal looked down at him from the other side of the wall.

"Will."

Will came awake.

\-----

It was dark. And cold. And damp. Just like in the dream. Will shivered; his feet were numb, and so were the tips of his fingers. He blinked away the bones at the edges of his vision and looked down at Hannibal's hand around his wrist. He knew it was Hannibal's hand by the scar that ran along the ball of his thumb, the origin of which Will did not know, and the size and shape of his fingers. These hands had once massaged a man's heart until it beat and saved his life.

A low, doggy whine sounded from somewhere around Will's knees. He looked down a little more and saw Winston. Winston whined again and stood on Will's bare, muddy foot. "Hey, boy," Will said. His voice cracked as if he hadn't spoken in a long time, "You--you're not allowed back here."

Light blazed from the French doors that opened onto the backyard-slash-ornamental garden. A gardener came in weekly to maintain the sculpted shrubbery and the koi pond. Hannibal occasionally disappeared into the garden, perhaps to meditate or perhaps to drink tea or perhaps to rake the sand pit, Will didn't know; he didn't go into the garden himself. He told himself it was because the dogs weren't allowed, but really it was because he himself did not feel allowed.

"I must confess, I didn't think your attempts to climb over my walls would be so literal," Hannibal said. "Although you're going the wrong direction, as well."

A shudder worked its way down Will's body, and then another. His teeth chattered. His feet were so cold they hurt. Hannibal put his large, warm hands on Will's shoulders, turned Will around, and put his large, warm arm around Will's shoulders. Will leaned in; he couldn't help it. Heat rose from Hannibal in waves, and he was solid and safe and steering Will back to the house. Winston tagged at their heels, followed shortly by Chester. The other dogs had stayed closer to the doors. Buster had his nose stuck in the koi pond.

Hannibal left the doors open as he guided Will toward the stairs. "Where--" Will began.

"The bath. You're freezing."

It was true, so Will didn't argue. Nor did he shake off Hannibal's arm as they climbed, even though Will was no invalid and his legs worked just fine. Hannibal wasn't in his dark blue robe, but rather in a thin red sweater and red plaid pajama pants that Will hadn't seen before. Will wondered if he color coordinated his sleepwear.

Hannibal led Will to his own bathroom, thank God, and left Will sitting on the closed toilet seat while he ran the bath.

"The dogs woke me," Hannibal said as he tested the water coming out of the tap. "They were barking, which is not wholly unusual in the middle of the night, but you usually quiet them quickly. This time they continued, so I went downstairs to have a look. I found the doors open and you outside, apparently seeking a door in the wall that wasn't there."

Will cleared his throat. "I can shower on my own. You don't have to run a bath for me."

"But I suspect you'd like me to."

Will wrapped his arms around himself as he hunched in his seat, watching Hannibal crouched next to the tub, making adjustments to the water. He rolled around possible rejoinders in his head, things like _No, really, I'm not a little kid_ or _Actually, I'd like you to go_ , but it was too late to say any of them.

Hannibal rose and said, "You can get in whenever you like. I'll fetch you a change of clothes."

He left, and Will stared at the steam rising up from the water, like the squiggly lines a child might use to draw emanating heat. He got to his feet, peeled off his clammy t-shirt and boxers, and stepped into the tub. His feet were so cold that the water burned, but Will gritted his teeth and sank down into it. He plunged his hands into the water and scrubbed his feet clean of dirt and dew, and his face of sweat.

Hannibal came back in, his face politely averted from Will in the tub, and placed Will's folded clothes on the toilet. Will saw him out of the corner of his eye. "Are you going to make me toast again?" he asked. It came out too loud, and echoed off the tile. Will bit his tongue. A smile seemed to cross Hannibal's face; Will wasn't sure, because he looked at Hannibal only out of the corner of his eye.

"I can if you like," Hannibal said.

Will cleared his throat. "Thank you," he said to the stream of water rushing from the faucet.

"For what?"

"For doing this again," Will said. "I know I'm not--I'm not the easiest person to have for a friend."

"As I've told you," said Hannibal, "it's my honor and privilege."

"But _why?_ " 

"Do I require a reason?" Hannibal knelt by the tub and wrenched the faucet to shut. The bathroom, without the thunderous roar of spilling water, rang with sudden silence. Will could hear his heartbeat in his ears. "Must I want something from you?"

Will finally looked up. Hannibal had on his smooth and inscrutable therapist face, and it should have angered him. Another time, maybe, it would have, if it hadn't been for the late hour and the lack of sleep. Instead, something in Will cracked open, and understanding poured into him like water from a pitcher.

"You do want something from me, though," Will said.

Hannibal tilted his head.

He was only a foot or two away, but Will couldn't move quickly; he was half-reclined and didn't want to slop water out of the tub. But Hannibal didn't move away as Will got closer, and he didn't move away as Will raised one wet, dripping hand and cupped the side of Hannibal's face. If anything he moved closer as Will leaned in and kissed him again.

It was not like last time. Last time, Hannibal had kept it polite because they'd been with company. There was no company here, and Hannibal kissed with open-mouthed ferocity. Hannibal, so tidy and restrained in the rest of his life, did not kiss like the surgeon that Will had once seen in an ambulance bay, or like the chef that he had witnessed so many times in the kitchen. He kissed like a goddamned animal, and for a moment Will thought he might go under the water.

Hannibal pulled away. His sweater was damp in places where Will had evidently grabbed it in his ardor, and his eyes were bright.

"Jesus," Will said. "How long have you wanted to do that?"

"I don't know," Hannibal answered.

Will mustered up his best _don't-bullshit-me_ look, despite being naked in a bathtub.

"I became conscious of it the last time we kissed, in front of Freddie Lounds," Hannibal said. "But perhaps I've wanted it since we first met. I've become aware of...many feelings, since then, ones that are new to me. I have not always recognized them for what they were."

That much Will could believe. Hannibal, who had affairs, not relationships; Hannibal, for whom the opportunity had never come along. "Bedelia must have her work cut out for her."

Hannibal actually smiled at that, one that showed his crooked tooth. "Would you still like some toast?"

"...yeah, actually."

"Then I'll go make some." Hannibal half rose to his feet and, while still stooped, dove in to brush his lips against Will's forehead. Will remained smiling stupidly into the water even after Hannibal had left.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's not much, but I hope that if you're having a tough day, this helps you feel a little better.

"Has Hannibal told you?" Will asked.

Dr. Du Maurier uncrossed and recrossed her legs. "It would not be appropriate for me to discuss my conversations with Hannibal."

Will snorted, sliding back in his chair. "So he calls them conversations with you too, huh?"

Dr. Du Maurier tilted her head. It was a gesture so familiar that Will wondered if one of them had consciously or unconsciously modeled after the other. That happened sometimes with close friends, lovers, family members; spend enough time around someone and you started to take on their tics and mannerisms. With Will, it took hardly any time at all: people bled into him like blood into tissue paper. "What would Hannibal have told me?"

Will took a deep breath and let it out with a sigh. "That our relationship has...changed."

"How so?"

Dr. Du Maurier had large windows that she kept uncurtained. Winter sunlight poured in. Outside, the landscape was covered in snow. "I kissed him," Will said.

He heard the movement of clothing against clothing as Dr. Du Maurier shifted in her seat. "And how did that make you feel?"

"That's a stereotypical question."

"All stereotypes begin with a grain of truth, or what is perceived as truth," said Dr. Du Maurier. "In therapy, we analyze and discuss thoughts and emotions, distinguish one from the other, and see how they bear against our actions. So: how did kissing Hannibal make you feel? Or rather: how do you feel about Hannibal now?"

The fields around Will's house in Wolf Trap would be tracked with the signs of animal life: deer, squirrels, rabbits, raccoons, and more. No dog paw prints, not right now. The only paw prints were in Hannibal's house, wet after visits to the side yard or to the dog park. No matter how Will tried to wipe their paws before letting them back in the house, someone always wriggled and escaped. It was a good thing Hannibal didn't have carpet.

"Sometimes it's hard for me to distinguish my own feelings from other people," said Will. "I can't tell if the attraction is mine or theirs. But I don't have that problem with Hannibal; whatever he's feeling, it's always very calm, and he never judges me. It allows me to feel like myself."

"And what do you feel for Hannibal?"

Will drummed his fingers against his armrest. He was tired of looking out the window, so he turned his attention to Dr. Du Maurier's shoes. She wore very high heels. "I like him. He makes me feel...good."

"Did kissing him feel good?"

Will gave a jerky nod.

"And how has it changed your relationship?"

"We're no longer friends." Will stilled his fingers against the armrest of his chair. "Or: we're more than friends. Hannibal says this is new for him; it's new for me, too. I don't think I've been in this kind of relationship, not seriously, since...God, since grad school, maybe."

"Affairs," said Dr. Du Maurier. "Not relationships."

Will huffed out a laugh and let one corner of his mouth tug upward. "Not even so much the affairs, with me." 

Dr. Du Maurier waited. Somewhere in the room, a clock ticked. Will surveyed the ticking of the clock against the beating of his heart. His heart beat somewhat slightly faster.

"I'm worried about Hannibal," Will said. "He has so much to lose. He claims he doesn't care, but I know that he began as the proverbial orphan, and that he must have spent years, decades, getting to where he is today. How can he not care about that? He could lose his license. We could jeopardize the case."

"Do you not also have much to lose?" Dr. Du Maurier asked.

"Not as much as Hannibal."

"What do you stand to lose?"

Will pictured Hannibal's frowns, the growing silences that would accompany their meals together as Will continued to make social stumbles, or refused to be social at all, or otherwise failed to live up to some standard of domesticity or appropriate behavior. Eventually, Will would return to Wolf Trap, and Hannibal would not stop him. But the house that had once been his symbol of safety, his boat on the water all lit up at night, would feel small and dusty and neglected, and somehow empty despite the presence of all his dogs. Warm smells from the kitchen would not greet him at the door, and no one would comfort Will after a nightmare. Will would glimpse Hannibal at the BAU sometimes, if Jack continued to call him in for the occasional consultation. But they would no longer have their conversations.

"You stand to lose as much as Hannibal does, if not more," said Dr. Du Maurier. "According to what you say, Hannibal has deemed the risks acceptable, when compared to the rewards. Do you not agree?"

"That's a rather economic way of looking at it," Will said past the tightness in his throat. "Risks. Rewards. Are we going to talk about return on investment next?"

"If you like," said Dr. Du Maurier. "What have you invested in this relationship, as you call it?"

Will tilted his head back, his face toward the ceiling. Dr. Du Maurier's home had high ceilings and a lot of windows. Hannibal had an office that was separate from his home; he said he liked the boundaries there to be clear. Dr. Du Maurier had no such boundaries there, but, then again, Hannibal was her only patient. Had been her only patient. Hannibal had opened both his home and his office to Will. "Not a lot," he admitted. "Not as much as Hannibal has."

"You're afraid," said Dr. Du Maurier. "You have much to lose, and you're afraid to invest too much."

"It's too late, isn't it?" said Will. "I can't take it back. I'm already invested." 

"And what have you received from your investment?"

Meals. A vacation. Space for all his dogs. Cinnamon toast. Will swallowed. "A lot."

"Is it what you wanted?"

Will looked out the window again. He rubbed his fingers against the armrest. "I don't know what I wanted. I didn't want any of it."

"And yet, now that you have it, you're loathe to give it up," observed Dr. Du Maurier. "Do you believe Hannibal feels the same way?"

"He's told me as much."

"Then no obstacle remains save for yourself," said Dr. Du Maurier.

\-----

Will was still thinking about it when he got home. He opened the side door for the dogs and went into the kitchen, where Hannibal was at the stove, doing something with what looked like onion and spices in a pan. He gave Will a sideways glance over his shoulder when he entered and a soft, distracted half-smile. Will hovered in the entryway to the kitchen with a nauseating lump pressed against his diaphragm.

It had never occurred to Will to look at Hannibal as an object of desire. He found that he admired different parts of Hannibal than he would a woman; where on a woman he appreciated the curves of her buttocks or breasts, on Hannibal he focused on the broad, angular lines of his shoulders and back. He'd always loved long hair on a woman, and he preferred women that were shorter than him so that he could envelop them in embraces and in bed. Hannibal had two inches on Will in height, and his hair was short although not aggressively so; but these weren't deal breakers. They were just different, in the way that Will himself was different. Hannibal was different, too.

Will approached. Hannibal gave no sign of noticing or caring; he was adding some kind of liquid to the pan. It gave a burst of fragrant steam. Hannibal tipped a bowl of dark cubes of meat after the liquid and adjusted the flame. Will put his hand on the back of Hannibal's shoulder. He could feel the heat even through Hannibal's shirt. Warm and solid.

"What're you making?" Will asked.

"Awaze tibs," Hannibal replied. "It's an Ethiopian lamb stew, but I am using mutton."

Will nodded. He didn't know what to do with his hand now. Did he leave it? Did he take it back? Hannibal gave him no clue either way, so Will left his hand where it was. "Can I help?"

"There's a salad, to go with the stew," said Hannibal. "I haven't started it." He nodded to a head of romaine lettuce, a tomato, and a red onion on the counter.

Will missed Hannibal's warmth under his hand as soon as he left it; he wondered if Hannibal felt the same. He found a colander and began to leaf the lettuce in the sink. "I told Dr. Du Maurier about us."

"Ah," said Hannibal. "Did she have any useful insight?"

"Did she have any for you?"

"You're assuming that I told her about us," said Hannibal. "You're also avoiding the question."

"Didn't you?" Will rinsed the lettuce and put it through the salad spinner. "Tell her."

Hannibal put the lid on the pan. He turned to face Will, wiping his spotless hands on the equally spotless dish towel tucked into the band of his apron. "You wouldn't have brought it up if you didn't want to discuss it."

"I should instill a moratorium on psychoanalysis in the evenings," Will said through his teeth.

"We're not on vacation," Hannibal said, but he was smiling. "We needn't discuss it if you don't want to. I'm merely questioning your recalcitrance."

Will sighed. He spent a few moments chopping the lettuce; unlike Hannibal, he was liable to slice something off if he didn't give it his full attention. "She thinks I have touch issues."

Hannibal raised his eyebrows. "How so?"

"She says I wasn't hugged enough as a child," Will muttered.

"Did she really say that?"

"That's what she _meant_." Will swept the lettuce into the proffered bowl and started on slicing the tomato. He couldn't do Hannibal's elegant, tissue-thin slices, but Will preferred his tomato chunky anyway. He liked being able to _taste_ the tomato.

"We require touch in order to flourish," Hannibal said. "The great psychological crisis of modern American culture is a lack of benign touch; studies indicate that we need at least eight minutes a day of physical touch, or we begin to suffer psychic damage."

Will hunched his shoulders. "That's what she said."

Hannibal smiled. He put his hand on Will's shoulder. Will, against all reason, began to relax.

\-----

After dinner, while Will loaded the dishwasher and Hannibal washed the wine glasses by hand, Hannibal said, "Do you want me to touch you?"

"Something tells me you mean a lot more than touch," Will said to the dishwasher rack.

"It doesn't have to be," said Hannibal. "We can share a bed, nothing more."

It shocked Will how much he wanted that: the warm presence of another body in his bed. They would wake tangled together, and Will would open his eyes with the sleepy knowledge that he was not alone. Something hungry and desperate lifted its head, and Will cringed and stuffed it back down. He was a grown man. "No."

Hannibal dried another wine glass and set it upside down on the towel to dry. "As you wish."

"It's not you," Will said. "I have nightmares. You know that."

"I do, and I've already told you that they don't bother me."

"You haven't been sleeping in the same bed as me," said Will. "Or even the same room. I don't want to trouble you."

"I ask that you allow me to decide what will or will not trouble me," said Hannibal. "You don't need to protect me, Will."

"You don't know what it is that I'm protecting you from," Will answered.

Hannibal wiped his towel across the unmarked surface of the counter and dried his hands. "I would like very much to see for myself."

_"Why?"_

Hannibal smiled. "Would you believe that I want to know everything about you?"

Will looked away, and then down. The dishwasher was full. He slid the drawer in and shut the door, fiddled with the knobs on the front. This dishwasher was so quiet that he sometimes didn't realize it was on.

"I've made you uncomfortable," Hannibal observed.

Will snorted. "When have you not?"

\-----

That night, Will changed and brushed his teeth in the guest bath. He looked at his bed, still disarranged from that morning's nightmares, then turned and padded down the hall toward Hannibal's bedroom.

Will had never been in Hannibal's bedroom before. He wondered what to expect. It would be enormous, of course. There would be a sumptuous bed, perhaps a four-poster with a canopy. The walls would be some unexpected color: purple, maybe, or maroon.

He did not predict the suit of samurai armor. The rest of Hannibal's house had so little Oriental influence that Will puzzled over it. There was the Japanese tea garden in the back, he supposed. He stepped the rest of the way into Hannibal's bedroom, which had, yes, blue walls, just a slightly lighter shade than the dining room. No canopied four-poster bed, however.

The room was indeed was enormous, and set up so that Hannibal could basically live in this room. There was a writing desk in one corner--why, then, did he even have a home office?--and a fireplace with two club chairs, as if Hannibal expected to entertain guests in this room. Perhaps he did. Will swallowed.

Hannibal was standing by the dresser, caught in the act of pulling on a long-sleeved sleep shirt. "Ready for bed?"

Will nodded jerkily.

The covers had already been turned down. Will waited until Hannibal got into bed, and then got in on the other side. He pulled the covers up to his chin and kept his arms and legs straight. The bed _was_ very large; Will would have to make an effort to touch Hannibal, even by accident.

"Have you been practicing the self-hypnotism techniques I showed you?" Hannibal asked.

"Sometimes."

"And visualizing new endings to your dreams? Practicing them?"

Will nodded.

"Close your eyes," Hannibal said.

Will did.

"I want you to relax, Will. Just the way that I taught you before. Feel each muscle in your body go loose, starting with your feet and working up toward your head. You are safe here, and warm. Thoughts may crowd into your head, but you do not need them. Dismiss them. Focus on relaxing. Sink deeper. Now: picture that place that gives you peace. Let my voice follow you there."

The river hadn't given Will peace since he'd dreamt of a fishhook through Hannibal's lip. He conjured up the fields behind his house, so that he could look back and see the yellow lights on in the distance. Snow crunched beneath his boots. It was cold, his breath fogging in the crisp winter air, but Will had on a thick jacket and a hat. His dogs milled around him.

"You are safe here," Hannibal said beside him. "Safe and free to relax and slip away."

"Yeah," Will wanted to say, but he couldn't move his mouth. The fields had disappeared. It was dawn, and autumn leaves shivered in the breeze by the side of the river. Hannibal was with him. He wasn't dead; there were no bloated corpses bobbing in the water. But Will couldn't visualize him in waders, and so he was standing in the water in his three-piece suit. That made Will smile.

"Relax, Will," said Hannibal. "Sleep."

\-----

Will was floating down the river, his eyes closed against the bright sun. He didn't feel the cold of the water, nor could he move his limbs. He could only remain as he was, relaxed and helpless against the current.

Something was wrong here.

Will came to a stop against something, but the river continued to flow around him. It tugged and plucked at his clothes but failed to pull him along. Finally, though his eyelids felt as if they were weighted down with lead, Will opened his eyes and stared up at the stag.

The stag snorted at him, nostrils flaring. Will made no response, and the stag leaned down its head to snuffle at Will's face. Warm breath washed over Will's nose and forehead. When the stag lifted its head, Will saw blood streaked across its muzzle.

He turned his head. The river was filled with blood.

Will woke sweating, gasping, kicking the blankets aside in a desperate bid for air. This was all normal. What was not normal was that he kicked someone else in the process, someone who came awake and said through a sleep-thickened voice, "Will?"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry." Will lurched out of bed. Sweat prickled on his skin. "I'll be right back."

There must have been an en suite bathroom somewhere in Hannibal's massive bedroom, but Will didn't feel like stumbling around in the dark looking for it right now. He made his way past the samurai armor and down the hall, back to his little--comparatively--guest bedroom, where he started by splashing water on his face and ended with stripping off his sweaty clothes and climbing into the shower. This was one nice thing about Hannibal's house: endless hot water.

Ordinarily, the dogs would be awake too, some of them milling around and following Will back and forth as he went to the bathroom, went to the closet, got towels, put the towels down on the bed. Will missed the clicking of their nails against the floor, their breaths, the way he was always bumping into them and they were always bumping into him.

He emerged from the bathroom to find Hannibal sitting on the bed, his back to Will.

"What." Will grabbed the towel from the bathroom and wrapped it around his waist.

Hannibal looked over his shoulder. "I suspected you weren't coming back," he said with a smile. "You'd go back to sleep here, if you slept at all, for fear of bothering me any more. Isn't that right?"

Will hadn't thought that far ahead, but he had to acknowledge it sounded like him.

"I'd like to stay, if you'll allow it," said Hannibal.

Will swallowed. "You don't have to."

"I know. I'd like to. Would you like me to?"

The want dug into Will's ribs like a spear. "Yes," he said, very quietly.

Hannibal turned his back again so that Will could pull on a fresh pair of boxers and a t-shirt. They climbed under the covers. This bed was slightly smaller than the one in Hannibal's bedroom, and Will was very aware that Hannibal was just a few inches away.

"Relax, Will," Hannibal said. "Sleep." Will closed his eyes.

\-----

Will surfaced from sleep gradually, like the tide creeping up a shoreline. His eyes didn't want to open. It was so warm under the covers, and he'd been dreaming about...what had he been dreaming about?

There was someone in bed with him. Their smells were mingled together. Will opened his eyes to the broad expanse of Hannibal's back, which he had been admiring just yesterday, and which he was just inches away from now. Will's forearms were tucked up in front of him. It looked like maybe Will had tried to spoon Hannibal in the middle of the night, with limited success.

Will pulled away.

Hannibal stirred. "Mmm?"

"Sorry," Will muttered.

"It's all right, Will." Hannibal rolled over so that they were facing. Will looked away. "Did you sleep well?"

"Okay. I didn't kick you in the middle of the night, did I?"

"Not so I noticed." Hannibal reached out. Will froze, but Hannibal only put his hand on Will's upper arm, where it wasn't quite covered by the sleeve of his t-shirt. His palm was warm and dry. "Touch me, Will."

Will swallowed. "Where?"

"Anywhere you like."

Will wanted to touch Hannibal's back, but that wasn't available to him now. Instead, he put his hand on Hannibal's arm, so that their poses were mirrored. Hannibal bent his head forward and kissed him, just a delicate closed-mouthed peck on the lips. Will was certain he had terrible morning breath, so he didn't open his mouth to let Hannibal in, but Hannibal was not deterred; he kissed his way along Will's jaw to his neck, and then simply left his face there, tucked into the crook between Will's shoulder and neck. Will wound his arms around Hannibal's shoulders and was able to touch his back after all, hand splayed between his shoulder blades. Hannibal gave off heat like a furnace.

"Good morning," Will said.

Hannibal stroked his hand up and down Will's spine. "What is it that you fear about touch?"

"I don't know."

"You crave it," said Hannibal, "but you fear it as something that has power over you. It's something that can leave you bereft, should it be taken away. If you don't play, then you don't have to pay."

Will took in a sharp breath through his nose and pulled away. "The dogs," he mumbled, aware that it was a feeble excuse. He flung off the covers.

Hannibal's hand closed around Will's wrist. Will tried to fling him off, but Hannibal's grip only tightened. Not enough to bruise, but enough to warn. Will froze. He didn't dare look back at Hannibal.

"We'll do something about that tonight," Hannibal said, quietly, and then he let go.

\-----

"I purchased two tickets to the ballet for tomorrow night," Hannibal said over their dinner of paella. "I would like it if you came with me."

"We should probably make more public appearances," Will acknowledged. They hadn't really made the rounds since buying cheese at José's.

"I can always tell others during the intermission that you don't care for dance," said Hannibal. "It will be even more convincing if it's true. You don't have to come."

"I'll come," Will said. "It's not that I don't like it. I don't know very much about it, so it all looks and sounds the same to me."

They did the dishes together, in what had by now become a familiar after-dinner ritual. Afterward, they would each retreat to their own business: Hannibal into his study, perhaps, and Will into the side yard with his dogs, or into his bedroom where he'd set up a corner for tying flies. Tonight, however, Hannibal took his time drying his hands. Will leaned against the counter and waited, shoulders tense.

"Would you like to come upstairs with me?" Hannibal asked.

"Yes," Will replied.

"You're not going to ask me what we'll do there?"

Will swallowed. "I think I know."

"Not specifics."

"I don't know that I care very much about the specifics."

Will let the dogs out into the side yard to do their business. He could hear their new tags jingling on their collars. It was dark, and the light from the street lamps didn't quite reach all the way into Hannibal's yard. He said his neighbors didn't care much for light pollution and that they tended to complain if the lights on their street were too bright. Will thought that was weird--rich people problems, he supposed--but he didn't mind it. It reminded him a little of his house in the middle of nowhere, Wolf Trap, and the blackness of the rural roads.

He found Hannibal in Will's bedroom, steam wafting gently from the en suite bathroom, his skin and hair still damp from the shower.

"Should I shower?" Will asked.

"If you like," said Hannibal.

"Do you want me to?"

"I like you as you are."

Will approached the bed. He didn't know how he felt, that he was clothed and Hannibal was naked. His eyes tracked down Hannibal's shoulders and chest. He was in amazing shape, and not just for a man his age; his body would have been the envy of a man twenty years his younger. Will was suddenly very aware of the deficiencies of his own body, which was sweaty and flabby in places. He looked away when his gaze drifted down to the thatch of hair around Hannibal's groin.

"I said we'd work on your touch issues," said Hannibal. "Are you amenable?"

Will swallowed. "That depends on what you have in mind."

"I thought you didn't care about specifics."

"I changed my mind."

Hannibal reached behind him where, blocked from Will's view by his body, he had left several...scarves? Will blinked. They were still scarves. In various solid colors and patterns, to match Hannibal's suits, probably. Will had one scarf and it was charcoal, because charcoal went with everything.

"I thought you might like to tie me down," Hannibal said.

All the breath left Will's body and took residence in the upper part of his skull. He had trouble seeing Hannibal, holding the scarves so lightly. But he could hear his voice, casual like he was asking Will about the ballet again.

"I could tie you down, of course," Hannibal said. "I suspect you'd enjoy that as well: the absence of responsibility. But I think it would be therapeutic for you to hold the power to touch, while I'm unable to reciprocate."

Will's mouth went dry at the mental image: Hannibal, naked and spreadeagled and bound for Will's enjoyment. A feast for his eyes and fingertips. He shivered; he wanted it so badly that he wasn't sure he should have it. He didn't know what would happen when he did.

"Is this therapy, Dr. Lecter?" Will asked. His voice refused to come out any higher than a whisper.

"If we're going to do this," said Hannibal, "I think that you'd better call me Hannibal." He held out a handful of scarves.

Will saw immediately why Hannibal had chosen this bedroom: his own bed was far too large, and it would've required a ridiculous number of scarves daisy-chained together to reach anything they could be tied to. They were very nice scarves, soft and not at all scratchy; probably cashmere or silk or something. Will knotted them loosely, so he wouldn't damage the fabric.

Then, once it was done, Will just sat there on his knees on the bed, looking down at Hannibal. Hannibal looked up at him with such perfect ease. Will had one scarf left in his hand.

"In case you wanted me to not be able to see you," Hannibal explained.

Will nodded. His shadow darkened Hannibal's face as Will curved over him. Hannibal lifted his head to let Will wind the scarf around his eyes.

"Is this okay?" Will asked.

"Yes." Hannibal's head sank back against the pillow. "Do whatever you like now."

Will surveyed the vast expanse of Hannibal's skin laid out before him. He had hair on his chest that thinned around his belly and thickened again leading down to his groin. His pectoral muscles were well-defined, but no six-pack or anything like that. More hair on his legs, more than on his forearms. Will gave in to an ill-defined impulse and ran his fingers along the inside of Hannibal's arm. Hannibal sucked in a startled breath, and Will took a small, smug joy in surprising Hannibal, who so rarely seemed surprised by anything.

"Whatever I like?" said Will. "What if I wanted to hurt you?"

"Do you want to hurt me?"

Hannibal sounded honestly curious. Will allowed himself to imagine it for a moment: a knife, pressing against Hannibal's ribs, blood welling up against steel and skin. Nausea rose up in his throat. "No, but I mean, it's dangerous, saying that I can do anything I want."

"I suspect that anything you want does not include hurting me," said Hannibal. "Given what I know of you. But I encourage you to be creative."

Will explored the hair on Hannibal's chest. It was slightly curly and graying, more gray than the hair on his head. He wondered if Hannibal's beard, if he let it grow, would come in gray. He ran his fingers down Hannibal's belly and watched the skin shiver. He skirted the hair around Hannibal's cock, which lay soft against his thigh. Hannibal was uncut, unlike Will. Will hadn't seen a lot of uncircumcised penises. It looked a little odd to him, but he shied away from touching it. Instead, he ran the backs of his knuckles against the tops of Hannibal's thighs, traced his forefinger around the knob of Hannibal's knee, and, finally, brushed the tips of his fingers against the soles of Hannibal's feet. Hannibal expelled a breath, but it wasn't really a laugh. Will tried again at Hannibal's ribs. Hannibal smiled, and Will smiled helplessly back, because Hannibal couldn't see him.

"Is that the best you can do?" Hannibal said.

"I don't know what you were expecting," Will said. "Wax? Whipping? I'm not actually that creative."

"That astonishes me."

Will leaned in and kissed Hannibal. Hannibal hadn't been expecting it, so his lips were still moving, but whatever he was going to say next was lost in Will's mouth. This kiss turned wet and heated, Hannibal opening up like he expected Will to climb inside him. Will almost wanted to; he could feel himself falling in. But he pulled back, gasping, and started unbuttoning his shirt. Hannibal turned his face toward Will, as if he could track the slow reveal of skin. Will dropped his shirt off the side of the bed, followed quickly by his pants.

It felt almost criminal to have so much skin against skin, like something Will wasn't supposed to have. Will ducked his head even as he lowered his weight onto Hannibal, chest pressing against chest and belly pressing against belly. He gasped a little when their groins met, and so did Hannibal. Neither of them was hard yet, but as Will clung desperately to Hannibal's shoulders he thought he might get there. Eventually. He wondered what he would do if he got hard but Hannibal didn't. He wondered what he would do if _Hannibal_ got hard but he didn't.

Hannibal could move his head enough to press a kiss to Will's hair, so he did. "It's all right, Will."

"I don't know what I'm supposed to do," Will whispered.

"There's nothing that you're supposed to do. Do whatever you like. Or do nothing; that too is a valid choice."

Will pressed his face to the crook between Hannibal's neck and shoulder. The muscle was hard and warm, and Hannibal smelled like sweat and faintly of whatever soap he used. Will reached up, without looking, and picked free the loose knot around Hannibal's left wrist. Then he did the same to Hannibal's right. "I want you to touch me," he mumbled.

Hannibal's arms wound around Will's back. Will waited for him to start skimming his fingernails up and down Will's back, or maybe reach down to grab his buttocks, but Hannibal simply held him. "Relax, Will," Hannibal said in his ear, and it was the same voice he used when he talked Will to sleep. "You're safe."

Will's muscles unwound without any conscious effort on his part. Maybe it should have alarmed him. Will took a deep breath in through his nose, full of Hannibal's scent, and felt Hannibal warm and comforting all around him. Hannibal probably wasn't comfortable like this; Will had almost his entire weight on him, and Hannibal's feet were still bound.

"It's all right," Hannibal said, still in that lulling, hypnotic tone. "This is a safe place for you. Just relax your body and let yourself drift."

Will did.

\-----

He opened his eyes he wasn't sure how many hours later, alone.

Will bolted up in bed. The lights were off. Will squinted at the clock on the bedside table; it was a little after one in the morning. Will cursed and swung his legs over the side of the bed.

Footsteps in the hallway. Will froze. The door swung open, admitting a distorted rectangle of light from the hallway, and then shut again.

"Hannibal?" Will said.

The figure in the bedroom paused. "Yes. You're awake."

"Yeah, I." Will scrubbed his hands over his face. "Did I _fall asleep_ on top of you? Oh my God, I am--"

"There's no need to apologize," Hannibal said, very firmly. "It was an experience I would repeat." He shrugged off his dressing gown and hung it up in Will's closet.

Will digested that while Hannibal shucked his pajama pants, folded them, and deposited them on the chair in the corner. Hannibal had, at some point, picked up Will's shirt and pants from the floor and also put them on the chair. "You liked that?"

"Having you drift off in my arms, so sweet and pliable? Very much so."

Will gaped. How on Earth did Hannibal just _say_ things like that? Judging from the smug expression on Hannibal's face, visible even in the darkness, Hannibal knew precisely how that statement had affected Will.

Now naked again, Hannibal climbed back into bed. "I've seen to the dogs," Hannibal said.

"Oh." Will lay back down under the covers, drawing them back up over his shoulders. "Thank you."

"I thought you might be concerned about them."

"Yeah," said Will. "I was going to go check on them myself, actually, when I woke up and you weren't here."

"I'm sorry if my absence distressed you." Hannibal turned so that he was facing Will, like two apostrophes curled toward each other. It made Will want to curl tighter, or roll away. 

He didn't know how to answer that. "It's okay."

"Did you think I was going to abandon you?" Hannibal asked, the tiniest of smiles hovering at the corners of his lips.

"It's stupid," said Will. "This is your house, so it's not like you could actually leave."

Hannibal reached out, under the blanket, and put his hand on Will's hand. He didn't try to hold it; just let it weigh there. Will twitched at first, almost jerking away. Hannibal's hand was still slightly chilled from his visit outdoors with the dogs. Will had never seen Hannibal's hands shake. He remembered Hannibal in the back of that ambulance, sure and steady and inexorable as a rock, or a thousand-year-old river.

"You're safe, Will," said Hannibal. "Relax."

Will closed his eyes.


	6. Chapter 6

"I thought you said there was no need to be formal."

"One must maintain appearances," Hannibal said smoothly as he slid another suit jacket off the rack.

Hannibal had taken one look at Will's good suit--a charcoal two-piece from Men's Wearhouse that he wore to weddings, funerals, and whenever he needed to impress someone--and dragged Will all the way to Barneys in Washington D.C. On a Saturday afternoon. Will's eyes watered at the price tags and at the interior decor, which was all white floors and white ceilings and glass display cases. Hannibal produced suit after shirt after suit for Will to try on.

"I really can't," Will said.

"I consider this part of maintaining my appearances." Hannibal thrust two shirts at Will. "Go and try these on."

Will did, mulling over all the while that Hannibal had just offered to pay for Will's wardrobe, and also had just claimed that he didn't want Will's shabby appearance to embarrass him in public. Hannibal, true to his word, had never been embarrassed by Will yet. So what did that mean?

The suit looked exactly the same as the one from Men's Wearhouse. But it did _feel_ better. Fabric quality must really make a difference.

Something changed when Will put on the dark purple shirt--it probably had a name other than "dark purple," something like "plum" or "aubergine"--and the black tie. Will looked in the mirror and saw someone dark and villainous looking back, someone like the person that Freddie Lounds wrote about in TattleCrime.

A bullet hole pocked the mirror, right over Will's eye, cracks radiating outward in the glass and shattering Will's reflection into a thousand jagged distortions. Will jumped backward. More holes punched into the mirror, _bang bang bang bang bang bang bang_ , like someone emptying their clip. Will dragged his gaze up from the round white impacts; Garrett Jacob Hobbs leered back at him.

Hobbs' purple lips shaped a single word. Will couldn't hear it, but he didn't have to: _See?_

Will almost ran from the dressing room. Hannibal was standing just outside with yet another handful of ties. "This one's fine," Will blurted.

Hannibal raised his eyebrows. "I agree," he said, with a slow, long look up and down Will's torso. "Would you like to wear it from the store?"

"What? Oh, um, no." Will loosened his tie. "I just wanted to show you what it looked like. On me."

"It looks good," Hannibal said, with a little smile that made Will flush.

\-----

Hannibal had a box at the ballet, because of course he did. He also had a box at the opera and a box at the symphony, Will was sure. There were four seats in the box; Will wondered if Hannibal usually came alone, or if he invited friends. But his high-society friends surely had their own boxes.

Will peered down at the stage. Wouldn't the view be better from the floor?

"The sound is better from here," Hannibal said. "We won't have as good a view of the dancers' expressions, but we'll be able to see the choreography very well.'

Will settled back in his seat. "I'm pretty sure that'll be wasted on me. You should have brought someone who actually knows something about ballet."

"You have an appreciation for beauty," Hannibal replied. "That is enough."

"Do I?" Will arched his eyebrow at Hannibal.

"You appreciate the natural beauty of the forest," Hannibal said. "And you have the ability to perceive art through the eyes of others. Though you may not see the artistry for yourself, you can see how the artist thought of it as art, and that itself is beautiful."

The lights dimmed before Will had to think of a reply. Hannibal looked away, and Will let out his breath in a silent exhale. A hush fell over the theater.

According to the program, this production of _The Little Mermaid_ hearkened back to the original Hans Christian Andersen story rather than the bowdlerized Disney version. Since Will had never seen the Disney movie nor read the original fairy tale, he had no idea what that meant. But ballet turned out to be easier than he thought. It was a little like watching a pantomime, but with a lot more dancing and fluttering of arms. Also, the program summarized the plot for him.

A man in a black frock coat was in love with an unattainable sea captain. The sea captain had gotten married, and so the man in black wrote a sad story about a little mermaid who was herself in love with a sea captain. She made a bargain with the sea witch--here played by a man in fierce kabuki makeup--to have herself turned into a human, with two human legs. But each step gave her agony, like walking on knives, and on land she was mute. Unable to speak and unable to dance, she wasn't able to communicate with the sea captain that it was she, the mermaid who had saved him from the storm.

The first act ended with a dance wherein the mermaid tried to touch the sea captain, who never saw her but instead danced with his future wife. She danced, unwillingly, with the man in black instead, who held her away from the sea captain, though she stretched her arms toward him. The music stopped; the dancers froze in their agonized tableau; the lights went out, the curtain fell, and the house lights came back on.

Will turned to Hannibal, who to his surprise had damp eyes. Whatever Will thought he was going to say died in his throat, and he looked away: seeing Hannibal with tears in his eyes was, somehow, even more intimate and inappropriate than seeing him naked the night before.

"What do you think?" Hannibal asked. He sounded normal.

"It's sad," Will said. "Hans Christian Andersen wrote this story about his own situation, right? He was in love with this man he couldn't have, so he wrote a story about a mermaid who was also in love with a man she couldn't have. But he's not even going to give her a happy ending."

"Through her, he is able to expunge and release his emotions," Hannibal said. "Her ending is not happy, it's true, but it is cathartic; he can, in a sense, send his feelings away with her, and, when she dies, his doomed love dies with her."

"Does it?" Will looked at Hannibal, now that he was sure Hannibal had composed himself. "Do you really think it's that simple? Feelings aren't like that; you can't just turn them on and off like a switch."

"Would that they were," Hannibal said with a faint smile. "We can only hope to be rational despite them. But there is something to be said for art and its ability to manipulate emotion. Would you like a drink?"

"Yes, please," Will said, hoping that that didn't make him sound desperate, or like an alcoholic.

Hannibal rose from his seat, buttoning his jacket. "Drinks are not allowed in the auditorium, I'm afraid, or I'd bring your beverage here. Will you join me on the mezzanine?"

Will opened his mouth to decline the drink after all; he would rather stay in the cozy security of the box. What came out was, "Of course."

He stayed close to Hannibal as they made their way out of the box and down the broad, curved red hallway whence they had come. The bar was a half-level below the boxes; perhaps that was one of the perks of having a box. None of the people they passed seemed to know Hannibal, and none of them tried to make eye contact, talking instead to the friends or relatives that they'd come to the ballet with. They weren't even all dressed up. Nobody was in jeans and a t-shirt, true, but Will saw plenty of plain blouses and khakis, and not many pearls. Will relaxed a little.

There was a sizeable crowd around the bar, still. Hannibal turned to Will. "Whiskey?" he asked. Will nodded, and Hannibal said, "Wait for me here."

Hannibal had left Will by a pillar, perhaps on purpose. Will leaned his back against it and put his hands in his pockets. People talked with their teeth flashing in their wide-open mouths, their laughter and babble reflecting off the high ceilings. Light winked off of jewelry and wine glasses. Will looked out the window, but it was dark outside and he could only see a reflection of the room.

"Will," Hannibal said. He wasn't alone; a thin, dark-haired woman with a sharp gaze and dark lipstick and feathers in her hair was with him. "This is Irene Komeda," he said as he handed Will his glass. He had a glass of wine himself, as did Ms. Komeda. "She accosted me by the bar and rather accused me of negligence in failing to introduce you to her." His gaze was apologetic, and Will gave him a half-smile in response.

"Pleased to meet you," Will said. He shook her hand. She had a strong grip, which Will liked.

"You've got half of Baltimore society in an uproar," she said. "Rob tells me you've got eight dogs."

"Seven," Will corrected.

"And still Hannibal doesn't have a single hair on his clothes." Mrs. Komeda gave Hannibal a sideways look. "How he does it I don't know. I have one cat and I brush her every day, and all I've got is enough fur to make another cat. I hear you work for the FBI?"

Will took a sip from his glass. "I teach at the Academy," he said. "And I do some consulting work."

"Hannibal consults too, now and then; is that how you met?"

"Something like that."

Ms. Komeda took a deep drink of her glass of wine, studying Will and Hannibal over the rim as she did so. "There's something special about you," she pronounced at last. "Nobody's moved into Hannibal's house before, much less with seven dogs. Do you cook?"

"I fish," Will said.

"Ah, that must be it," she said. "You provide a source of fresh fish. Well then, Hannibal, when will you be having a dinner party to introduce us to Will properly?"

Will could see, very clearly, what was about to happen: Hannibal, knowing that Will would loathe having to smile and make small talk with Baltimore society, would find some way to refuse. Perhaps he'd say that schedule conflicts would prevent any such thing from happening until the spring (when, hopefully, they would have caught The Bleeder); or perhaps he'd say that he'd just hosted one, thank you very much, and Ms. Komeda was not the boss of him; or perhaps he'd give some artistic reason, like that he was lacking inspiration or some such thing. And Will appreciated that, really he did, and he dreaded being unable to escape from one of Hannibal's dinner parties because it'd be happening in his (for now) home--but he was nobody's fine china, nor an old, chipped mug.

"The--" Hannibal began.

"We'll be hosting it together," said Will.

Ms. Komeda turned large, fascinated eyes on Will, and Will was under the impression it was only Hannibal's magnificent self-control that prevented him from doing the same.

"Much as Hannibal would love to plan everything himself," Will continued, "I'm not a possession to be shown off. So I told him, either I had as much input into the dinner party as he did, or we weren't having one at all."

"Just so," Hannibal said, with perfect equanimity.

Ms. Komeda waved one long-fingernailed hand. "Amazing. I can't wait to see what this'll do to your style, Hannibal. When are invitations going out?"

"Within the next week, though the party itself won't be happening for another several, most probably," Hannibal said, just as the lights went off and then on again. "Much to do, and you know I like to give people plenty of time to clear their calendars."

"And we've always appreciated it," said Mrs. Komeda. The lights flickered again. "I believe that's our cue. I'll be looking for that invitation, Hannibal. And Will," she added.

"We'll be looking forward to seeing you there," Will replied with a lifted hand.

The gathered throng had begun to mobilize, oozing back toward the auditorium. Hannibal and Will set their glasses on a nearby bench before joining them.

"You always surprise me," Hannibal remarked. "I can never entirely predict you."

"Yeah, well," said Will. "You'd better get used to it."

\-----

The sea captain made preparations to marry his girlfriend, while the mermaid, bound to a wheelchair, watched in mute anguish; the sea witch made another appearance, this time giving the mermaid a knife and the option to free herself from the spell by killing the sea captain and return to the ocean that was her true home. The mermaid clutched the knife to her chest and bowed, shoulders shaking with tears. Will glanced at Hannibal. Hannibal was still as stone in his seat, his thumbnail between his teeth. He looked like a statue.

In the end, the mermaid was unable to do the deed. She went right up to him at the wedding reception, the knife clutched in her small hands. Several times she was close enough to cut, but always she spun away, her face a mask of anguish. Her sea captain love embraced her like a brother and sailed away, none the wiser for the fate that he had almost suffered. The mermaid shed her human garb, and the man in black shed his dark jacket. They danced together, stripped almost bare, their movements mirrored, and sank to the stage entwined. The curtain went down; the lights came up. The audience applauded. The curtain went back up, and the dancers returned, holding hands, smiling and bowing.

Hannibal was one of the first to rise to his feet in a standing ovation, though the rest of the audience quickly followed. Will stood too, though it wasn't as if anyone could see them up here. The stage lights swung wildly around the auditorium. The audience clapped loudest for the mermaid.

Will remained standing, even after the curtain went down again. It felt good after so many hours seated, blood flowing through stretched muscles. He gazed down at the auditorium, where variegated dots bobbed and trickled out between the rows of seats. Hannibal's hand landed on Will's shoulder, very softly, and Will turned his head to give him a wan smile.

Hannibal led Will down from the boxes, down to the lobby and out on the street. The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts was right on the Potomac, and Will was arrested by the moonlight on the water. Though the hour was late, several couples and families strolled by the railing, bundled up in their coats, no doubt people who had just attended the ballet. He wondered what the Kennedy Center looked like from the other side of the river. Did it look like a boat on the water, all lit up with safety?

"What did you think?" Hannibal queried.

"It was sad," Will said. He felt heavy with it: the trembling sadness in the mermaid's face, mixed with her hesitant joy; the yearning in every line of the author's body; and the peace that had come upon them both, by the end. "I knew it was going to be sad; it said so in the program. But, I don't know. It still surprised me."

"There is safety, in the sadness of stories." Hannibal came to stand next to Will properly. "They permit us to feel, but we take no risks. Nobody's heart was truly broken; it was, in the end, only a story, and now we can return to our homes with our loved ones."

Will took a deep breath and let it out again. Hannibal was close enough that Will could feel the heat of his body. He wanted to turn and bury his face in Hannibal's neck. "Let's go," he said. "The dogs have been waiting long enough."

\-----

"There's no real need for us to have a dinner party," Hannibal said as they wound their way along the interstate. Will thought he'd probably never get used to riding in Hannibal's car. Everything was so quiet and comfortable, and it didn't feel like they were going eighty miles an hour at all. "I just had one not that long ago, and I hardly need to debut you."

"You're not debuting me," said Will. "We're debuting us."

"You're not obligated to do anything you don't want to do," Hannibal said. "Not even for the sake of the case, Will."

"It's not for the sake of the case," said Will. "Maybe I want to do this right."

Hannibal glanced at Will, just for a moment, and his eyes went back to the road. "Do what?"

"Be in a relationship with you," said Will. "That's what this is, isn't it? A relationship."

Hannibal tilted his head; not quite a _yes_ , but definitely not a _no_.

"We slept together last night," Will said. "Didn't we?"

"We did," Hannibal said. "Would you like to do it again?"

Will looked down at his hands. "Yes," he said. "Would you?"

"Very much so."

Will smiled at his hands. "Then we should. And we'll co-host a dinner party. I mean it, Hannibal: I'm making 50 percent of the decisions. We should probably serve fish," he realized. "I told Mrs. Komeda that I fish."

"We'll serve whatever you like," said Hannibal. "I look forward to it."

\-----

Will stood by the bed, where no trace remained of the previous night's activities. The scarves had disappeared, as had Hannibal's clothing, and the bed had even been made. Will sat on it. He wasn't sure how he was supposed to feel about that. Probably it was just more of Hannibal's fussy behavior and not any sort of message, but it gave Will nothing to grab hold of. He took a few steps into the hallway, turned around, and went back to his room. He thought about moths and flames.

Hannibal poked his head into the room. "Are you coming to bed?" he asked.

"Yes," Will said, relieved.

Hannibal had already turned down the covers. He was wearing pajama pants and nothing else. Will wanted to smooth his hand up and down Hannibal's back and feel all the heat under his skin. He got into bed, and almost immediately Hannibal curled up behind him, one arm under Will's head and the other curled around Will's torso. Will held his breath.

"Did you just want to sleep?" Hannibal asked.

"I don't know," Will whispered.

Hannibal's hand wandered down Will's chest, down his belly to the band of his boxers. "Do you feel more certain now?"

Will's mouth went dry.

"Just yes or no, Will." Hannibal pressed his lips to the side of Will's neck.

"Yes," Will said. His voice came out too high.

Hannibal pulled Will's boxers down. Will wasn't sure what he was supposed to do, so he lay rigid in Hannibal's arms while Hannibal started fondling Will's dick, reaching down to cup his balls. "Relax, Will," Hannibal murmured into his ear. "Close your eyes. Let the tension leave your body. Begin with your feet and move upward."

"I'm not sure you want me falling asleep on you right now," Will mumbled.

Hannibal chuckled, and that small sound sent a small curl of warmth into Will's belly that curled his toes. "Tell me how you feel, right now, in your body."

Will flexed his toes. "Warm," he decided.

"Where?"

"Everywhere. Your hand is warm; you're warm; I feel," Will took a deep breath and let it out in a gust, "warm in m-my, my belly. And," he swallowed; his dick was finally starting to show an interest in the proceedings, getting harder and longer in Hannibal's hand. "Oh, it's starting to feel really good."

"Describe 'good,'" Hannibal instructed. His hand retreated from Will's groin, and Will wanted to protest. Had he done something wrong? He heard something wet sweep across skin behind his shoulder--Hannibal, licking his hand--and the hand returned.

Will bucked his hips. "I feel tense," he said through his teeth, "but, but in a good way. It starts where you're touching me and spreads outward, like fire. Like I'm burning," he gasped.

Hannibal made a low sound somewhere between a moan and a sigh, like he could feel whatever it was that Will was feeling, and the sheer novelty of that pierced Will straight through with pleasure. Will bucked his hips a few more times, bracing the bottoms of his feet against Hannibal's legs to give himself more leverage. Hannibal didn't seem to mind and in fact gave a hum of approval. He placed his palm against the head of Will's dick and pointed his fingers down so that they formed a cage; he gave Will brisk strokes up and down, and Will gasped and arched. Will could feel himself leaking, and it made everything more slick and amazing.

"You're so quiet," Hannibal observed.

"I hope you're not expecting me to tell you more about how I feel," Will ground out.

"But I don't know if you feel good," Hannibal said, and Will could _hear_ the smug smile in his voice, that goddamn bastard.

"It's good." Will struggled against the sheets, against Hannibal's hold. "It's good, it's--it's good."

"Are you going to come?"

"Yes," Will panted. "I mean, yes, if you keep going."

"Hmmmm." Hannibal withdrew his hand, and Will could have turned around and punched him. But he felt a hand pushing him down, and then Hannibal was looming above him, half crouched, with the sheet slipping down his back. His hair fell down over his forehead in a soft sweep, and Will was seized with the incongruous urge to touch it. He kept his hands in the sheets.

"I want to see you," Hannibal explained, and he put his hand on Will's dick again.

But Will wasn't sure he could come like this, not like this, so _seen_. He squeezed his eyes shut and hoped that Hannibal didn't ask him to open them with some bullshit corny line about wanting to see his eyes. Hannibal used both hands to jack him, one on his dick and the other on his balls. Will's orgasm was mounting, coiling tighter, and all of a sudden he felt a warm, wet heat on the head of his cock--and fuck, that was it, he was coming.

The last orgasm he'd had with another person had been--God, had it really been years ago? How pathetic was that? But Will didn't feel pathetic right now, he felt _glorious_ , panting and sinking into the mattress. He opened his eyes to see Hannibal licking his lips, and he realized what that warm, moist sensation closing over his cock had been. "Oh, God."

Hannibal's mouth crooked, and his eyes crinkled. "I'll take that as a compliment."

"I." Will pushed the heel of his hand over his forehead. He couldn't quite make out the state of Hannibal's crotch, all the way down there, but he was going to be either very worried or very put out if it wasn't tented. "Do you want me to…?" He tried to flap one hand in the general direction of Hannibal's genitals.

"Not right now. Perhaps tomorrow," he added, at Will's incredulous look.

"Really?" Will hadn't meant to sound so demanding. Or unbelieving.

Hannibal pulled Will's boxers back up over his hips and tucked his softening cock back in. Will thought he should probably have been insulted at being treated like a doll, but it was weirdly intimate--even more so than having Hannibal's mouth on him, just now. And that was nice, and not objectionable at all, nor was being gathered back into Hannibal's arms.

"Thanks," Will said.

"You're very welcome," Hannibal said. "Now, relax, and let yourself drift…"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The ballet in this chapter is a real (and read sad) ballet; you can watch [a trailer for it on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k27lDDj07Z4). (I don't know where you can watch the full thing; sorry! I actually own it on blu-ray.)


	7. Chapter 7

"How many guests?" Hannibal asked.

Will blinked.  "I don't know; how many does your table seat?"  He tried to remember how many chairs he'd seen around the table.

"A dinner party need not be limited to the dinner table," Hannibal said.  "I've been known to throw cocktail parties.  I hire waiters to carry trays of canapes."

"Er," said Will.  "This doesn't need to be that big a deal."

Hannibal scratched something down on the yellow legal pad in front of him.  He used a fountain pen even for this.  Will wondered if he even owned a ballpoint, much less a box of those cheap BIC pens that Will had scattered around his house in Wolf Trap.  The mental image of his cozy little farmhouse startled him; when was the last time he'd thought about it?

Will didn't have that many surfaces in his home, and so his dining table served multiple purposes: he ate his meals there, graded papers there, did research on his laptop there.  Hannibal's dining table seemed to be only for dining, and they were planning this party in Hannibal's home office, which he called his study.  Hannibal was in his chair, while Will perched on the edge of his desk.  Winston lay at Will's feet.

"I will hire two or three people," Hannibal said absently.  "To help serve and prepare the food, and do dishes."

"You have  _ two dishwashers _ ," Will said.  "And I'm surprised you feel like you need help with prep, given that one, you have me, and two, you're a control freak."

Hannibal smiled as he scribbled something else on the legal pad.  It looked nothing like Will's frenetic scrawl when he jotted down notes to himself; Hannibal's note very clearly read:  _ H & W on prep, 1 for serving, 1 for washing _ .  "It's useful to have help with leafing lettuce for salads, arranging the centerpieces, that sort of thing.  Even I can't be in two places at once, and I don't want the food to suffer.

"I suspected you'd prefer a smaller party rather than larger," Hannibal went on.  "So it'll be a sit down dinner, in the dining room.  That limits our party to eight people other than ourselves."

"Well, we have to invite Mrs. Komeda," said Will.

Hannibal nodded and wrote that down.  "She is widowed, so we'll have to think of a partner for her."

"What?" said Will.

"To balance the table," Hannibal explained.  "Perhaps someone from the BAU?"

"Um."  Will tried to imagine Jack seated across from him, the both of them in suits and ties, making small talk and trying to pretend that this wasn't for a case.  Or, worse yet, Jack realizing that this wasn't just about a case, not anymore.  "Not--not really.  Besides, isn't this about verisimilitude?"

Hannibal regarded Will thoughtfully.  "As you like," he said at last.  "Would it be all right if I invited Alana?"

Will swallowed.  The uncomfortable sensations wrought by the specter of Jack Crawford at their dinner table only compounded when replaced by Alana.  "If you want," he said.  "This is your party."

"It is  _ our _ party," Hannibal corrected.  "And we won't invite anyone that we don't both agree to."  He gave Will that smile that creased the corners of his eyes, and Will, with only a little bit of effort, smiled back.

"Then I want to invite Gerry and Robert," said Will.  "And their dogs," he added.

After the guest list came the date, which they fixed at three weeks from now: far enough out that people usually had room in their calendars, but soon enough that people would feel excitement and anticipation.  Dress code: formal.  (Will could not shake Hannibal on this.)  Hannibal sketched out a seating plan.  He placed himself at the head with a speed that made Will suspect it was automatic; then his pen hovered over the page.

"Ordinarily, you and I should be seated at opposite ends of the table," Hannibal said.  "But I suspect you'd be more comfortable closer to me."

"You suspect right," said Will.  "But I'll be fine for an evening.  I'm an adult."

Hannibal nodded and wrote Will in at the other end of the table.

And then, at last, Hannibal turned the page with a flourish and said, "Now, the menu."

The way he said it made Will laugh.  "Saving the best for last?  Well, I told Mrs. Komeda there would be fish.  And I have plenty of it in the freezer, back in Wolf Trap."

"Surely not enough for a party of ten," Hannibal said with raised eyebrows.

"Maybe," said Will.  "But not if I want any fish for myself later in the season.  And a menu of all fish would be pretty boring."

The nib swirled across the pad.  "We'll build the menu around the fish.  What sort of fish do you have?"

It was actually pretty fun, although maybe it was only because Hannibal was there.  Hannibal was like a general in the war room, rattling off wine pairings and seasonal vegetable accompaniments instead of troop movements.  His pen flew over the paper as he jotted down notes and even small drawings of potential dishes and platings.  A whole baked salmon, elegantly dressed with sliced cucumber and lemon; some kind of fish pie with heads and tails sticking out of the crust; small fried "fish" made of garbanzo flour, popular in Ethiopia for Lent, according to Hannibal.  Will was happy to let Hannibal design the menu, even though he thought the fish pie looked revolting.

\-----

"Sorry guys," Will said.  Winston and Clay cocked their heads at Will.  Harvard continued to scratch himself.  "I'll be back in a few hours."

Will drove with the windows down, cold spears of air lashing at his face and hair.  He'd thought about taking the dogs with him, but that long drive with seven furry bodies in the back, only to make it again just a short couple of hours later...not worth it.

It wasn't until the house bloomed up ahead of him that Will realized he'd half-expected it to be gone.  Vanished in a dream-haze, like how it felt at Hannibal's house the rest of the time.  Will pulled handfuls of mail out of the mailbox before driving the rest of the way up to the house.  He mounted the porch steps and stood there a while, taking in the chair, the dog bowls.  He fit his key in the lock and let himself inside.

The smell of dogs seemed stronger than usual, even though no dogs had been here a while.  Will opened a few windows to let it air out.  He dropped the mail on the kitchen table, as he usually did, and sifted through it with one hand, his keys in the other.  Grocery store flyers.  Credit card offers.  Reminder from his dentist.

Will heard a noise from behind him, in the living room.  He froze.

Under normal circumstances, he would have assumed it was one of the dogs and gone on with sorting the mail.  But there were no dogs here.  Will stayed very still, until he heard the noise again.

The spot where Will had put a hole in the chimney was a different color and texture from the rest of the drywall.  Will placed his hand over it, and then, slowly, his ear.  He breathed in and out, in and out, like he was at the doctor's office.  Nothing.  Will let out a long exhale of relief.  Probably just the house settling.  He'd been away too long and had forgotten all its familiar noises.  It was an old house.

He finished going through the mail, dropping the things that required further perusal into his bag to take back with him to Hannibal's house.  Will stood in the kitchen for a few minutes, staring into the middle distance.  Was there anything else he should get, while he was here?  More clothes, definitely; he'd brought eight days' worth with him to Hannibal's, and he was afraid that at any minute Hannibal might start buying him more than the occasional suit.  He spied the poles he'd left behind--he'd only brought two to Hannibal's house--and thought about the fish in the chest freezer in the barn.

Will went out to the barn, and he opened his eyes in the car.

\-----

He was in the garage, his car next to Hannibal's Bentley.  Will looked at his watch.  He couldn't remember when he'd last looked at it, but he was fairly certain it hadn't been anywhere near four in the afternoon.  He could see his fishing poles in the back seat from the rearview mirror, along with a large blue cooler.

Will got out of the car.  He went around to the front and put his hand on the hood.  Still warm--hot, even.  He hadn't been sitting in the car for that long, then.  He went around to the back and flipped up the top of the cooler.  Full of frozen fish and ice.

Will sank down to sit next to the cooler.  He put his head in his hands.

"Will?"

Will looked up, heart in his throat.  It was Hannibal, apron around his waist and shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows.  He had a dish towel over one shoulder.

"I thought I heard your car, but you didn't come inside," said Hannibal.  "Is everything all right?"

"I don't know how I got here," Will said.  His voice came out strange.

"Well, you must have driven," Hannibal said.

"Yeah, but."  Will swallowed.  "I don't remember it.  The last thing I remember is--is being at my house, trying to think of what else to take, and then I opened my eyes back here.  It was like waking up, but I wasn't asleep."  He could hear himself, but he didn't sound like himself; he sounded like someone much calmer and more collected.

"Were you preoccupied?"

"No!"  Will shook his head.  "This wasn't like being on autopilot, like I was thinking about, about what to have for lunch or about the fucking dinner party, I'm telling you, I don't even remember getting in the goddamn car."  He clutched his hair in his hands.  It hurt.  That made him feel better, so he did it again.

Hannibal's hand closed around Will's wrist, always warm and sure of what to do.  "Will…"

"I think there's something wrong with me," Will said to his knees.  "I, I'm seeing things, hearing things…"

"Come inside," Hannibal said.  "I'll help you carry your things."

\-----

Will felt better as soon as he saw the dogs, so much so that he got down on the floor with them in the living room while Hannibal put away the fish.  Chester knocked over the fishing poles in his enthusiasm, and the sound of them clattering to the floor was so common, so mundane, that it choked Will's throat.  He buried his hands in Buffy's fur and hugged her fiercely until the feeling passed.

Hannibal padded into the living room, now sans apron, though his sleeves were still rolled up.  He lowered himself to the rug, legs crossed.  Will tried not to stare, wondering how often, if ever, Hannibal sat on the floor.  Buffy left Will and climbed into Hannibal's lap, and Hannibal let her.  Now Will did stare. 

"You say you've been seeing things," said Hannibal.  "Hearing things."

Will nodded.

"Will you tell me what they've been?"

Will shook his head, but not in denial.  He scratched Mal behind the ears, and she closed her eyes in pleasure.  "It's...more of the same, really.  I see Garrett Jacob Hobbs a lot."  He swallowed.  "I told you about the animal in the chimney."

"How you suspect there was no animal in the chimney, yes."

"But now," Will swallowed again, "now I've just lost the last four, six, I don't know how many hours of my life.  It was like I was asleep, but I wasn't; apparently I was doing things like putting fish in ice and making decisions about my fishing poles and  _ driving from Virginia to Maryland _ ."  His fingers tightened convulsively in Mal's fur; she whined, and Will forced them to relax.  "I think I should get a brain scan."

"You think there's a medical cause for this?"  Hannibal did not sound surprised, merely curious.

"Don't you?" Will shot back.  He jammed the heels of his hands into his eyes and rubbed until he saw white stars on a black background.  "I feel like I'm going crazy, like my brain doesn't belong to me anymore."

"Which it hasn't for some time," Hannibal observed.

Will snorted.  That was true enough.

"I have some friends in the medical profession," Hannibal said.  "Let me make some enquiries for you.  Otherwise it'll take you weeks until you can get an MRI."

Will let all his breath out at once.  His spine sagged, and he found himself tilting into Hannibal's side.  Hannibal dislodged one hand from Buffy's fur and put his arm around Will.  "Thank you," Will said.  And then, recalling Hannibal in his apron and rolled up sleeves, "Sorry; I think I interrupted you in the middle of making dinner."

"Grinding sausage, actually," said Hannibal.  "Nothing that couldn't rest for a few minutes."  He pressed a kiss to Will's hair.  "Would you like to help?"

"Sure," Will said, and he got up off the floor.

\-----

That night, Will didn't dawdle in the hallway after brushing his teeth; he proceeded to Hannibal's room, where he knew Hannibal would be waiting for him.  It probably made sense to just move his toiletries into Hannibal's en suite, to shorten the trip.  Will's mind shied away from the thought.  Hannibal hadn't bothered him about it.

Hannibal was sitting up in bed when Will got there, reading something on his tablet.  He was so old-fashioned in some ways yet technologically updated in others.  Will had taken one look at his hand-cranked sausage maker and said, "You know they make ones with motors now, right?"

Will had also brought a book with him to bed, even though it wasn't his custom to read before sleeping; it was just a useless prop in his hands.  He looked sideways at Hannibal, who looked soft and smelled of toothpaste.

"Is there something you want, Will?" Hannibal said without looking up from his tablet.

"No," Will said, and looked away.

Hannibal held out his arm, and Will hesitated a moment before curling into it.  He lay with his head pillowed half on Hannibal's lap and half on his abdomen, while Hannibal's hand rested on Will's shoulder.

"Would you like something else?" Hannibal asked.

"No," Will said, muffled, into Hannibal's leg.  "This is fine."

"If you're content, then say no more, but if there's something better than fine then I would like to hear it."

Will mulled this over.  "Are you saying you'd like to have sex?"

"I'm asking you if  _ you'd _ like to have sex."

Will didn't know.  He was, in fact, fine with staying like this until he fell asleep, at which point Hannibal would somehow have to extricate himself and place Will on his own pillow before turning out the lights.  But he wasn't averse to the idea.

"Sure," said Will.

Hannibal set down his tablet.  "You don't need to indulge me."

"Why not?" asked Will.  "You indulge me all the time.

"I do that because I want to, not out of a sense of obligation," Hannibal replied.

"Even if it were an obligation--which it's not, this isn't the 18th century and I'm not your wife--isn't that what being in a relationship is about?"  Will turned a little so that he could see Hannibal's face.  Hannibal gazed down at him with half-shuttered eyes, shadows pooling around his eye sockets and below his cheekbones.  "Give and take.  Compromises.  Quid pro quo.  That's what I hear, anyway.  I don't have much direct experience," Will admitted, and pulled his lips into something he hoped approximated rueful.

"Neither do I," Hannibal confessed.  "Even the desire to compromise is...new to me."  He slid his tablet, screen now dark, onto the nightstand, which Will took as a sign that the discussion was over.  Sure enough, once the tablet was safely out of the way, Hannibal bent down and kissed him.

Being surrounded by Hannibal was wonderful.  Will wanted to feel secure and enveloped in Hannibal's heat all the time.  He would have been happy to spend the rest of the evening just being held.  But being kissed by Hannibal was wonderful too; Will liked kissing, and Hannibal was a good kisser: tender and ardent, and not too pushy nor sloppy.

At length, Will became aware that Hannibal was getting hard.  He let this knowledge grow and spread and settle in his chest, solid like something he could hold and not fear.  He wasn't afraid of Hannibal.  Hannibal indulged him.  Will broke off the kiss and twisted to put his hand on Hannibal's crotch.  Hannibal's breath caught, and Will loved that: it was one of the few times he'd heard Hannibal sound human.

Will tugged at one end of the drawstring to Hannibal's pajama pants, and then the other; the knot slipped loose, and Will dipped his fingers inside.  Hannibal sank down into the pillows, rearranging his legs under the covers.  Will tugged the duvet down with his other hand so that he could watch his hand work under the red plaid flannel.  Hannibal's breath shook.

"You don't normally wear pants to bed, do you?" Will asked.

Hannibal shook his head.  "I usually sleep nude."

"Of course you do," Will muttered.  "All the better to feel your thousand count sheets with."  They weren't even that soft.

Hannibal licked his lips.  He, too, was watching the rise and fall of Will's hand under the fabric, so obscene and vulgar and not dignified at all.  "It seemed forward to continue my regular habits, under the circumstances."

Will pulled the waistband down, exposing first Hannibal's pubes, and then his cock.  The foreskin was already fully retracted, exposing a shiny pink head.  Will touched it with just his fingertips at first, then his palm, and then to even his own shock, he leaned forward and closed his mouth over it.

Though it was the end of the day and neither of them had showered before bed, Hannibal didn't taste...bad.  Strong, yes; musky, yes; and Hannibal smelled more strongly here as well.  But none of that was bad, and it hardly mattered in the face of the sound Hannibal made: a shocked, awed gasp.  Will had Hannibal in his mouth, between his teeth, and Hannibal had coveted him for God only knew how long and had been so patient.

Will went down until he felt himself gag, which wasn't very far.  He pulled off and spoke to Hannibal's bellybutton, "You're going to have to tell me if I'm doing this wrong," before going back down.

"There's hardly a way to do this wrong, I think," Hannibal said faintly.

Hannibal wasn't enormous by any means, at least not compared to the locker room peeks of his youth that Will only vaguely remembered, but he felt gigantic in Will's mouth.  He gave it his best, though he felt like this was probably a subpar experience.  Hannibal didn't give any criticism, and after some time his hand came up to rest in Will's hair.  Not pulling or anything like that, though Will didn't think he would have minded, and not pushing Will down either.  Just touching him.  Will risked a look up, and Hannibal gazed back with open-mouthed adoration.

Too much.  Will broke the contact and pulled off, letting Hannibal's cock slap wetly back against his belly.  Will took it in his hands and rubbed it, stroked it, toyed with the foreskin.  Hannibal's hand moved from Will's hair to cradle his face, smoothing his thumb over Will's cheekbone.  Will turned to suck that thumb into his mouth.  Hannibal's quick intake of breath sent a rush of vindication and power to wash away some of Will's trepidation.  This wasn't so bad as long as Will avoided looking at Hannibal.

"I want to make you come," Will said to Hannibal's nipple.  "How do I do that?"

Hannibal sighed.  "Could you use your mouth again?  Please?"

The last word lit a fire in Will's belly.  "Okay."  Will closed his eyes.  That made it easier, less distracting, as he sucked Hannibal back into his mouth.  He could focus on Hannibal's hand on his face, the feel of Hannibal's skin in his mouth, the changes in Hannibal's breathing.  Will's jaw was starting to ache, but that breathing had gotten heavy, and he could taste bitter pre-come.  Hannibal's thighs shifted underneath him, and Hannibal's fingers convulsed in Will's hair.

"Will--" Hannibal warned.

Will looked up, because he knew Hannibal wanted him to.  Hannibal always wanted to see Will's face, Will's eyes.  Hannibal jerked, like Will's gaze was an electric current, and then he came in Will's mouth, his eyes still open.

Will coughed and swallowed and pulled away, roughly all at the same time, which resulted in some of Hannibal's come getting spit up on his belly and some of it going down Will's throat.  It tasted foul enough that Will seriously considered getting up right then and there to wash out his mouth, but Hannibal seized him in a deep and hungry kiss, licking into Will's mouth like he wanted to taste himself there.  Will allowed himself to be manhandled until he was lying back across Hannibal's lap, still being kissed, even as Hannibal's hand made its way into Will's boxers.

"You're a terror," Hannibal murmured against Will's mouth as he worked Will's cock.  Will wasn't hard, but he was getting there quickly.

Will squirmed.  "It wasn't that good."

Hannibal pressed a kiss to Will's forehead.  Will's cock filled and lifted between his thighs, giving Hannibal more to work with.  "You don't know," Hannibal said against his skin, "what you've done to me.  What you do to me still."

"Tell me," Will gasped, toes curling.

"You've changed me," said Hannibal.  "You don't know how, not yet, but you will."

"You've changed me too," Will said, thinking of how small and cold his life had been before, how he was--fuck--how Hannibal had just sent out invitations to a dinner party with both his and Will's names on them.

"I hope so," Hannibal whispered, and Will tensed all over and came.

Blissful peace.  Silence.  Will drifted.  It was so rare that it was still and alone in his head.  Hannibal stripped off his own shirt and used it to clean Will off before dropping it on the floor.  Will chuckled at that, but then Hannibal was tugging at the hem of Will's shirt as well.  Will let him peel it off and drop it over the side, and his boxers.

Hannibal pulled the duvet back over them both and they lay curled around each other, naked, skin to skin, heat pooling underneath the covers.  Will's eyelids sagged and fell shut.

"Sleep, Will," Hannibal breathed.  "You're safe here."

\---

The animal was wounded.

Will had not been the one to wound it.  He was quite certain of that.  But he'd seen the blood on the leaves and, once, the trampled place where the beast had fallen, writhed, and then gotten up again, leaving behind blood streaked on crushed grass.  Probably it was dead already, but if not, there was some other hunter on its trail.  But it was dark, and Will hadn't glimpsed anyone else in the woods.  Maybe the other hunter had given up and gone home without bagging his kill, leaving some poor creature to die alone and in pain in the night.  Will tightened his grip on his gun and forged onward.

The blood came more and more frequently, no longer in flecks or spots but in splashes and gouts where the animal had stumbled or leaned against a tree or a bush.  Will picked up his pace, no longer trying to be quiet.  He rounded an oak into the clearing just as the moon came out from behind a cloud and silver light poured down.

Hannibal looked up at him from where he knelt in the middle of the clearing.  Blood glistened from around his mouth and on his hands.  "Ah, Will," he said.  "You came.  I'm so glad."  He stood and came toward Will, who held the gun in nerveless hands.  Hannibal put his warm, sticky palms on Will's upper arms.  "Will," he said.  He said it very kindly, but firmly.  Then he shook Will, just a little.  "Will!"

Will opened his eyes.  Hannibal's concerned expression swam into view.  Will jerked back, as if Hannibal were made of flames, and his hand came into contact with something cold and wet.  He looked down.  Winston gave his tail a feeble flick as he gazed up at Will.

Hardwood floor beneath his bare feet.  Wheat-colored wallpaper, pale in the gloom of the hallway.  Harvard and Clay had come to join them at this point, nails clicking.  Will realized that he was naked, and cold.  His toes curled against the varnish.

"Thank goodness you were still in the house," Hannibal said.

The relief in Hannibal's voice stuck in Will's chest and threatened to crawl up through his throat.  "What's happening to me?"  

His voice broke on the second word.  Hannibal gathered him into his arms, so that Will could bury his face in Hannibal's sweater and not have to look at his face.

"I'll make some calls tomorrow," Hannibal said.

"Okay," Will mumbled.  He was suddenly heavy with weariness.

"Come back to bed."

"Okay."

Will let Hannibal lead him down the hall and back up to the bedroom.  The dogs stood at the bottom of the stairs and watched them go.  Hannibal guided Will not back to the bed, however, but into the en suite bathroom.  Will's teeth had begun to chatter at this point, and gooseflesh rose on his arms.  Cold sweat clung to his skin.  Hannibal started the shower and, when steam clouded the glass, he pushed Will inside and under the spray.  Will turned, arms wrapped around himself, to see that Hannibal was stripping off his pajama pants and following.  He leaned against Hannibal as water cascaded over them, plastering their hair against their heads.  His feet were so cold that the hot water hurt them.  Hannibal ran his hands up and down Will's arms.

"I woke because you were no longer beside me," Hannibal said.  "My body knew before my mind."

Will shifted.  His feet tingled as the blood began to circulate again.

"I think this is what I felt, when we came back from the Hamptons," Hannibal went on.  "It was difficult at first to make the adjustment to having someone in my space, to consider someone else's needs.  But it so quickly became habit, and when I came back to my large, empty house, I realized an absence."

Will flashed, involuntarily, to his little farmhouse in Wolf Trap, that he'd seen just earlier that day, how cramped and lonely and dusty it'd seemed.  "I know what you mean."

Hannibal turned off the water.  Will could move by himself now, and as he stepped out of the shower stall he realized that there was only one towel on the rack.  Hannibal reached around him, took it off its rung, and slung it around Will's shoulders.  It was the thickest towel Will had ever felt in his life--Jesus, he didn't even know they made towels this heavy--and a deep burgundy like wine.  He scrubbed the water from his body and his hair, and then Hannibal took it from him and did the same to himself.

Will's clothes were still on the floor next to the bed: cheap white t-shirt that had come two in a bag; cheap cotton boxers that had come five to a box, on a hook.  There, on Hannibal's floor, of all places.  Will sat on the edge of the bed and pulled them on.  When he turned around, Hannibal was sitting up against the headboard, watching him.  Will crawled under the covers.  He turned toward Hannibal, but didn't move closer; Hannibal had to inch toward him and brush his hand across Will's forehead.

"Would you like me to talk to you?" Hannibal sked.

"Please," Will mumbled, his eyes already sliding shut under Hannibal's touch.

Hannibal began to speak, then: words like "relax" and "safe" and "rest."  The river unfurled in Will's mind, framed by red and orange leaves.  The air smelled clean and crisp; the line whirled through the air.  Will floated away.


	8. Chapter 8

"Encephalitis?"

"Anti-NMDA encephalitis," Will confirmed.

Dr. Du Maurier leaned back in her seat. "That's a very serious medical condition."

"Yeah." Will flexed his hand open and shut on the arm of the chair. "Apparently the entire right side of my brain was inflamed. Is inflamed. The doctor said if I'd waited another week, I'd have started having hallucinations--well, _worse_ hallucinations--and started acting," Will waved his hand, "crazy. Well, more crazy." In a way that Hannibal probably would have had him forcibly hospitalized for anyway. That made Will feel a little better.

"I'm surprised you're not still in the hospital," said Dr. Du Maurier.

"I was. Hannibal could tell I hated it, so he had them discharge me into his care."

"And how does that make you feel?"

_How do you think it makes me feel?_ Will took a deep breath, looked down at his knees, and said, "I like it." When Dr. Du Maurier offered no judgment or comment, he went on: "I didn't at first. Hannibal cancelled appointments, rearranged his schedule. That made me...I felt bad. But I liked that he was there. That he was willing to do that for me."

"You like feeling important to him," said Dr. Du Maurier.

"Yeah." Will tilted his head back. The ceiling here was smooth and eggshell white. Nothing for Will to fix his attention on besides an unobtrusive glass light fixture, which he'd already examined many times. It was surprisingly free of dust. Will wondered if she hired a professional cleaning service, or if she did it herself. Will couldn't imagine her on a stepladder, reaching up with an extra-long feather duster.

"I used to think about my funeral," Will said. "Not in a--not like that. But when I went to funerals, for coworkers or friends or their families, there was always someone there who cared the most. A sister or a boyfriend or a daughter. Someone who was crying the hardest, or who stared the longest because this death was like the sun going out of their world and now they were lost. I used to wonder what it would be like, to have someone in my life that I was that important to," said Will. "Whether I'd ever have that."

Dr. Du Maurier didn't smile, though something in her face did move. "Do you think you're that important to Hannibal?"

Will swallowed against the sudden obstruction in his throat. "I want to be."

"And do you feel that way about Hannibal?"

Will tried to imagine Hannibal, dead. Heart attack, maybe. He couldn't see it. Usually he had no trouble picturing the slack lips, the clouded blue eyes, the pale skin. He tried to imagine living in Hannibal's house without Hannibal in it. Letting his dogs roam around the vast rooms without care for how much they were shedding or the mud that they were tracking in. It seemed inconsiderate, even in a hypothetical scenario, and so Will envisioned moving back to Wolf Trap instead. Never seeing Hannibal again. Because Hannibal was dead.

"Maybe," Will said.

\-----

There was an unfamiliar car parked in front of the house. Will frowned; it wasn't unusual for Hannibal to have visitors--or callers, as he called them--in the form of neighbors, colleagues, the occasional friend, but it was unusual that Hannibal hadn't called to let Will know that there would be company.

Will was cautious as he opened the door. The dogs came careening toward him, panting and whining happily. "Hannibal?" he called.

Hannibal appeared at the other end of the foyer. "I'm in the living room. With Ms. Lounds."

_"Freddie_ Lounds?"

Will followed Hannibal into the living room where, yes, Freddie Lounds sat on the couch, with a teapot, two cups, and a dish of cookies on the coffee table. Will felt his eyebrows struggle to achieve liftoff. Lounds smiled and wiggled her fingers at Will.

"I thought I'd check in on your little workplace romance," she said. "Readers really liked the last one. Turns out people love reading about people in love."

"Even when one of them's a psychopath?" Will ground out.

Lounds affected an injured tone. Her eyes turned large and reproachful. "I apologized for that."

Hannibal swooped in, setting a third cup and saucer down on the coffee table. He poured tea into it. "I've been giving Ms. Lounds a bit of background. How we met, how our relationship grew. You know," he glanced up at Will, "I've been thinking we should do something for Jack. To acknowledge that, in a way, he brought us together."

Jack. Of course. A feature piece in Tattlecrime on Will Graham and his one-time therapist bonding over crime scenes and dead bodies would no doubt convince The Bleeder that they were the real deal, draw his attention. Will sank down on the couch, on Hannibal's other side, so that Lounds was farther away. "Thank him for not firing both our asses, you mean."

"Perhaps a little of that, too." Hannibal's hand came down on Will's knee, the casual and familiar gesture of the established lover. Will tried not to stare at it. Lounds, he noticed, was also trying not to stare. Will moved a little closer to Hannibal.

"And you two decided to move in together after, what, two months?" said Lounds. "You move awfully fast, don't you?"

"Motivated by selfishness," said Hannibal. "I wanted to see more of Will, and also I wanted to care for him. It appalled me that no one else saw what I saw."

"I don't even really know what you see," Will said, because it was easier to be self-deprecating than honest in front of Freddie Lounds. Speaking of _appalling_ , he couldn't believe Hannibal was telling Lounds this much.

"Mmm," said Lounds. "It's surprising, however, that you'd choose to move in together, given that The Bleeder's still active."

Will and Hannibal exchanged glances. "I can't comment on an ongoing investigation," Will said.

"I'm not asking you to comment in your capacity as law enforcement," said Lounds. "I'm asking you to comment as a newly cohabiting couple that fits the profile. You're not just the least bit worried that The Bleeder's going to come after you?"

"I don't fear death," said Hannibal. "And that frees me to enjoy each moment as it comes. That said, of course I'm concerned about Will's safety." Hannibal threaded his fingers through Will's. It took a moment before Will remembered to turn his palm, so that he could hold Hannibal's hand properly. He didn't miss the way Lounds eyed their joined hands. "But I'm also confident that Will can hold his own," Hannibal continued. "And there are the dogs. They provide quite a bit of added security."

"Speaking of which," Lounds said. "Now, I'm not asking for anything terribly personal--"

"When are you not," Will muttered. Hannibal squeezed Will's hand.

"--it's just that readers like to hear about the little details of a couple's life together," Lounds went on. "It helps them relate. So I'm asking for a little anecdote, maybe about how everything hasn't been sunshine and roses, maybe about the dogs?" She gestured to the four canines flopped on the rug in various states of repose. "You can't tell me that you haven't argued about these dogs even _once_."

Will looked at Hannibal. Hannibal stroked his thumb over Will's hand. It was just the barest brush, but Will still shivered.

"Solitude can be thought of as a habit," Hannibal said. "If one is used to being alone, then it doesn't occur that there can be anything different. I've been used to taking my meals alone and entertaining myself, and that's been the adjustment: to realize that there's someone else in my life whom I must consider. But it's been novel to break that habit and think of someone else's needs and wants."

The words sounded vaguely familiar. They conjured up the smell of the ocean and the wind whipping at them off the sea. Will had said those things to needle Hannibal; he hadn't considered that Hannibal would take them to heart. In fact, he'd forgotten that he said them.

"It never even occurred to me to object to the dogs in any serious way," Hannibal went on. "They're a part of Will and his well-being; to contest them in my home would be to contest Will in my home."

"I notice you said _your_ home," Will said. He didn't know where the words came from. He'd just opened his mouth and they'd come tumbling out. Now he felt panic trying to follow after.

Hannibal paused, his lips slightly parted, and turned to face Will. "My apologies. I meant our home."

"No, you're right," said Will. "It's your home. I've just been trying to figure out where I fit into it. But I think that if we're really going to...break old habits, we need a different house. One that can really be _our_ home."

Hannibal looked thoughtful, and also very aware that Lounds was just on his other side, looking like a very delighted fox in the proverbial hen house. "I didn't know you felt this way."

"Neither did I," said Will. "But we don't have to talk about this now. What other questions do you have, Ms. Lounds?"

\-----

"Do you truly dislike this house?" Hannibal asked, after Freddie Lounds had been safely seen to her car, as they were clearing the tea set.

"I don't hate it," said Will. "It's just way too big. It's impractical; your heating bill must be a fortune. I know you can pay it," Will added, before Hannibal could protest, "I just think it's unnecessary. And I'm not really wild about the location."

Hannibal made an affirmative noise. "I suspect you'd like more acreage."

"And fewer neighbors, yeah. I can't stand everyone knowing my business. It gives me the creeps."

"I wouldn't be averse to more privacy," Hannibal admitted.

They carried the tea set back to the kitchen, where Hannibal began running the water in the sink in preparation for washing everything by hand. Will wasn't sure why the plain white tea cups couldn't go in the dishwasher, but he set the cups on the counter and picked up the dish towel for drying.

"You're not asking me to move to Wolf Trap," Hannibal observed, as he picked up the teapot and began to soap it with a soft sponge.

"What? No. I assumed you'd hate it."

"I wouldn't hate it, but it's not my preference either," Hannibal admitted. "Much in the same way that you feel uneasy in a home that's clearly mine, I would never feel comfortable in a home that's clearly yours. Better to start anew. The question is where."

Will ran his towel over the surface of the teapot while he thought. "I'm fine with Baltimore, as long as it's quiet, with space for the dogs. Your patients are all here, right? And the commute to Quantico's the same, and I'm used to the long drive."

Hannibal soaped another teacup and passed it to Will. "You could think more broadly."

Will frowned. "Broadly?"

"Are you committed to your work with the FBI?" said Hannibal. "Is there really nowhere else in the world you'd rather be?"

Will set the now-dry teacup down on the counter and stared at Hannibal. "What are you suggesting?"

"I'm not attached to my practice," said Hannibal. "Neither are you to yours, I suspect. We could go anywhere. We could live in the Hamptons permanently. Or we could go to California. Or leave the United States entirely: Mexico. Spain. I would love to show you Italy. The fly fishing in Tuscany is said to be excellent," he added, with just the touch of a smile. He set a wet teacup and saucer next to Will's elbow.

Will leaned against the counter and stared at the wet dishes without really seeing them. "You're serious."

"Quite serious." Hannibal stacked another wet teacup and saucer on the counter. Will picked it up mechanically and started to dry it. "I admit, it's been a small fantasy of mine. You and I in a house in Provence. There would be plenty of room for dogs."

"That's." Will put down his dry dishes. "That's not a small fantasy."

"Nor is it one that you should feel obligated to make true." Hannibal finished rinsing the last teacup and turned off the water. "It's just a suggestion. We don't have to leave the area at all, if you don't want to." He handed the teacup to Will.

The teacup slipped from Will's grasp; he wasn't sure if Hannibal had let go of it too soon or if he was just clumsy with nerves. He tried to catch it but just missed the handle, and the cup hit the floor and scattered white shards everywhere. "Shit," Will said. "Shit, sorry. I'll get the broom."

Hannibal surveyed the carnage with the same mild expression he wore every time Will was a disaster.

\-----

Will thought about moving away while he swept up the porcelain fragments and disposed of them. He thought about moving away while playing with the dogs in the side yard. He thought about moving away in the shower.

Will had, some time ago, ceased thinking of his future as anything that would be significantly different from his present. He would live in his farmhouse in Wolf Trap, teach at the FBI Academy, do his research, write his papers. Dogs would come and go. Will would get older; he would start to have trouble getting out of bed in the mornings, discover new aches and pains, maybe develop arthritis in his joints. One day, decades down the line, he would retire, and then he would spend his days in the house. It had not occurred to Will that this was changeable.

Will had never been to Europe. Well, that wasn't quite true; he'd been to London, once, for a law enforcement conference. But he'd never been to the continent. He wasn't sure he'd like it. What would he even _do?_ Will's skills were not transferable to a country where he didn't know the language. He'd be dependent on Hannibal for everything. Will had substantial savings of his own, but Hannibal's fortune was so vast that Will suspected Hannibal didn't really know how much any of his things cost; bills just magically got paid, and still there was enough money for yet another harpsichord.

But it would be nice...oh, how nice it would be, to be out of reach of Jack Crawford and his Evil Minds museum. Will didn't mind teaching--he'd made it work for him for half a dozen FBI academies by now, after all--but he minded crawling around in the filthy minds of filthy killers. The thought of being away from it all, free to do only the things he enjoyed while Hannibal handled the rest--well, who _wouldn't_ want that? Will wanted it so badly his mouth watered. But it wasn't practical.

He needed to stop thinking about this. Will wrenched the shower off--another perk of Hannibal's house: endless hot water--and stepped out. He'd been under the water so long that his fingertips had gone pruny. Will toweled his hair until it was no longer dripping and left the towel draped around his shoulders while he pulled on his boxers.

The Bleeder's file was still on his desk. Will had dug it out again, thinking that maybe now that he was on the mend from the encephalitis, he might have some clarity. Now he sat down at his desk and opened the file.

\-----

"The Bleeder hates his victims," Will said. "He wants to erase them--but more than that, he wants to punish them."

Hannibal was mincing carrots. His knife didn't even pause as he said, dryly, "Is killing them not enough of a punishment?"

"If that were the case, he wouldn't be keeping them alive so long." Will swept his chopped celery into a bowl with the diced onion. "It's not just sadism. He wants them to suffer, and he wants the victim's partner to suffer too. There's something psychological about it. I think he--talked to them, while he was bleeding them."

"What did he tell them?" Hannibal added his carrots to Will's bowl and set the bowl aside, along with the bowl of cooked white rice and the bowl of glistening ground meat. Beef heart, he had told Will.

"I don't know." Will shook his head. "I can't see it. I can't see that far."

"You certainly had a productive afternoon. Will you clean this squash, please?" Hannibal handed Will a small acorn squash and a grapefruit spoon. "Have you given any more thought to my proposal?"

Will sliced the squash in half. "I thought you said I didn't have to decide now."

"You don't," said Hannibal. "But I'm concerned that you evidently spent the afternoon profiling The Bleeder rather than dwell on the future."

Will dug into the squash with the grapefruit spoon. He thought the existence of special spoons with serrated edges was unnecessary, but it _did_ make it easier to scrape the pulp and seeds out of the center of the squash. "Profiling The Bleeder was more productive."

Hannibal was heating a pan on the stove. He looked at the pan and not at Will. "Perhaps I regret bringing it up. If you're not interested--"

"No." Will scooped the squash innards into the sink. He wanted to press the heels of his hands against his eyes, but they were covered in squash goop. "No, it's not that. I'm interested, I just--you know, Lounds is right. We've only known each other a few months. We've only been a _couple_ for a couple of weeks, not that anyone knows that. And now we're talking about running off to Southern France? What if this doesn't work out? What if we break up? Then I'm homeless, stuck in another country, and--" Something tugged there, right there. Will frowned down into the sink.

"I'm not suggesting that we elope tomorrow," said Hannibal. "Merely that it's--"

"He's reenacting it." Will pivoted to face Hannibal. "The Bleeder. He was in this position. Cohabiting. Everything was fine. Then something happened. They broke up. One of them had to move out. He's angry, resentful. He wants to punish these happy couples. Happy until they had a fight. Someone leaves, The Bleeder moves in, takes the one who was left behind. He wants the other one to come back to an empty home. To feel the guilt. They shouldn't have left." He was pacing. Pacing and waving his hands, still covered in yellow-orange slime. Hannibal was just watching. He'd turned off the flame on the stove. "He had a partner, Hannibal. Then he didn't, and he...snapped. No, not snapped," he corrected himself. "He had these urges before. He was a sadist, a psychopath, all along. He may have killed before, just...not like this. Not this elaborately. Not to send a message."

"Do you think his partner found out what he was?" Hannibal asked. "Might that have been the fuel for the demise of their relationship?"

"Maybe." Will brought up one hand to bite his thumbnail, realized that it was still covered in drying squash goo, and returned to the sink to wash his hands. "But he must not suspect that his former partner's The Bleeder, or he would have come forward by now. So it was a more run-of-the-mill breakup, and now The Bleeder's punishing him by punishing couples that resemble the one that he used to be a part of."

Hannibal turned the flame back on. "That means The Bleeder intends his former partner to find out that he's the culprit, eventually. In order for the message to be delivered."

Will dried his hands but kept hold of the towel afterward, staring into space. Spite and sadness and self-righteous rage roiled just behind his eyes. It wasn't his; he blinked it away. "Shit. Yeah. So he'll out himself eventually."

"Probably in a very disastrous way," Hannibal agreed. 

\-----

Will had grown used to going to Hannibal's room, the last few days. Indeed, Hannibal had insisted on it, after Will had been discharged into his care. Hannibal needed to have him close, and his bedroom was larger and more comfortable than the guest room Will still thought of as "his." But tonight, after all that awkward talk of moving and the house and the condition of their relationship, Will wondered if it wouldn't be more courteous for him to retire to a different bedroom. He still kept his things there: his fly-tying equipment; his fishing poles; his books; The Bleeder's file still waited for him on his desk.

"I want to take you away from all this," Hannibal said from behind him. Will had stood too long in the hallway, hovering, trying to decide. "It's selfish, I know, but I want your mind to belong to me alone, and not to these killers."

"It's just--it's a big move," Will said.

"Is it so precious to you to inhabit the minds of criminals?"

Will turned to face Hannibal. "I save lives."

Hannibal held out his hand. Will took it, and he let Hannibal lead him down the hall, past the suit of Japanese armor. Let Hannibal turn down the covers for him. Hannibal left Will to undress himself, but if he'd put his hands on the hem of Will's t-shirt, Will would have lifted his arms for Hannibal like a child. He wanted to.

They hadn't touched each other since Will had gone into the hospital and come out again. Over a week, then. Will wondered, as he slid under the covers, whether he should touch Hannibal now. As an apology. That wasn't the way you were supposed to use sex, but he had so little else to offer--

"It's terrible for you to imagine these things, isn't it?" said Hannibal. "Terrible because you enjoy it."

Will tensed. He wanted to get up and leave. He didn't want to have this conversation here, right now, in bed. "I don't enjoy it."

"But the minds you imagine: they enjoy it, the things they do. Thus, you enjoy it, by extension."

Will swallowed. "I don't _want_ to enjoy it. I shouldn't enjoy it."

Hannibal shifted on his side of the bed, rolling to face Will. Will remained on his back, staring at the ceiling.

"In the therapeutic community, that's what's known as meta-emotion," Hannibal said. "Feelings about feelings. They're very rarely productive. More often than not, the person becomes mired in guilt and shame, unable to move forward or back, until they suffocate. I don't want that for you."

"What are you saying?" Will turned his head. He couldn't make out Hannibal's expression: just the gleam of his sclera, paler in the dark than the rest of his face.

"Emotions are what they are," said Hannibal. "You don't behold a tiger and wish it were a lamb. You accept it for what it is and cherish it, as I've accepted you for what you are."

Will drew in a sharp breath. Unexpected moisture gathered on his lower eyelids, and he didn't dare speak. Hannibal's fingers brushed against the side of Will's face. Will had to fight not to shift away.

"Are you saying you see me as a tiger?" Will strove to keep his voice playful. It trembled. "Thought I was a mongoose."

Hannibal brushed his thumb over Will's lips. "I see you as a divine creature, Will. I'd have you no other way."

"So you want me to, what, accept that I have the capacity to enjoy killing?"

"Yes." Hannibal withdrew his hand. "Only when we're honest with ourselves can we make progress."

Will closed his eyes. "Let's sleep, Hannibal."

"Yes. All right." Hannibal lowered his voice, murmuring words like "safe" and "relax." Will let himself drift down the river.


	9. Chapter 9

"Last visit!" the nurse chirped. Her badge gave her name as LEARY, RAMONA. She had bleached blonde hair and a chipped tooth. Will didn't meet her eyes. He looked at Hannibal instead, who was sitting in the corner of the room while nurse Leary, Ramona taped his IV to his arm. "Bet you can't wait to get this over with, huh?"

"Yeah." Will sat back against the pillows, his legs stretched out in front of him. The nurse would have to change the sheets and blankets and pillowcase again, even though Will had only sat on top of them. It was stupid that they insisted on checking him in. Hannibal could probably administer the drugs to him at home.

Nurse Leary left, her sensible shoes squeaking against the hospital floor.

Hannibal scooted his chair a little closer to the bed. "How do you feel?"

"Fine," Will said, then surprised himself by adding, "Actually fine. I didn't realize how foggy I'd gotten. It's like washing the windows on the house."

"Precisely why I get mine washed professionally, four times a year."

Will shot Hannibal a faint, irritated smile. Hannibal smiled back.

"At the--if we get a new house," Will said, "I'm going to wash the windows myself."

Hannibal's smile broadened. "As you wish."

Silence unfurled, then stretched out and grew longer. Will plucked at the scratchy hospital blanket. He looked out the window. The window had a view of a parking lot.

"We should probably stage a fight at some point," Will said. "Try to draw The Bleeder out. You could storm out and go to a motel room."

Hannibal shook his head and leaned forward in his chair. "He won't be able to seize you with all the dogs around. He probably won't even try. If one of us leaves, it ought to be you; then it'll be me all alone in a large house, and he'll think I'm an easy target."

Will bit his lip. "I don't want to put you in danger."

"I've been in danger before," Hannibal reminded him. He sat back in his chair. "Besides, Uncle Jack has his people watching the house at all times."

Will scrunched the hospital blanket in his hand and rubbed the fabric between his forefinger and thumb. "And then what happens after that?"

"After we capture The Bleeder?"

"Yeah. Then do we…" Move in for real? Come out to Jack? Will couldn't even imagine it. He couldn't imagine telling Alana, either, or the look on her face. Strangely, he _could_ imagine telling Beverly, and Price, and Zeller. Beverly would probably be happy.

"If you like. Or we could look for another home. In the Baltimore area, if you think Provence is too hasty. You wouldn't have to sell your home, necessarily. You could rent it, or keep it as a vacation home." Hannibal smiled.

Will huffed a chuckle. "When I need a vacation from you, you mean?" He rested his head back against the pillows. A framed print of a forest landscape hung on the wall across from the bed. When he'd been in the hospital for real, for all of a day and a night, Hannibal had brought the koi painting to hang on the wall, and he'd taken it right back to the house again when Will hadn't wanted to stay in the hospital. Will took a deep breath and let it out through his nose. "I feel a little sorry for The Bleeder."

"Sorry?"

"I think...I think he was in love," said Will. "With whoever he was living with before. He thought it was love, but then they had some kind of falling out, and now he's taking it out on these couples. He sees himself in them, or what he used to be, and now he's punishing them...destroying their love. What's not pitiable about that? That's not an excuse, of course, but it means I feel sorry for him."

"It's difficult to feel empathy for a person and still see them as an enemy," said Hannibal. "Perhaps even impossible. And if these crimes are motivated by anger, as you say...strong emotion of one kind is often motivated by strong emotion of another kind. His anger wouldn't be so great if his love hadn't also been so great."

Will sighed and closed his eyes. He could feel the IV in his arm. "I just want to find him. And stop him."

"Not kill him?"

"No." Will opened his eyes and scowled at Hannibal. "I know you have a lot to say about how killing bad people makes us feel good, and the sprig of zest from the power and all that, but it doesn't make _me_ feel good. I have a lot of, what did you call it, meta-emotion about that. I can't help it."

"I wish you would," said Hannibal.

\-----

The refrigerator was stuffed with groceries. Will had once questioned why Hannibal needed to have two refrigerators, along with two dishwashers and two sinks. Most of the time, they were not entirely full. But now that Hannibal was planning dinner for ten people, they burst with greens and cucumbers and carrots, not to mention all the defrosting fish.

"The flowers are arriving on Friday," Hannibal said. "And the help is arriving at 10 am on Saturday."

"No last-minute cancellations from any of the guests?" Will shut the refrigerator.

"They wouldn't dare," said Hannibal.

Will smiled. "This feels a little bit like a celebration," he said. "Maybe we should hang a banner: WILL'S BRAIN IS NO LONGER ON FIRE. Write it on a cake."

Hannibal caught Will from behind and hugged him around the middle, setting his chin on Will's shoulder. "Are you regretting not inviting Jack after all?" Hannibal asked.

"He didn't call to chew me out about the Tattlecrime article," Will mused. He brought his hand up to put over Hannibal's arm, keeping him there. He didn't want this moment to end. They could stay standing in the kitchen forever.

"He's a practical man," said Hannibal. "He'll work with Ms. Lounds when it suits him, as he'll use your gifts when it suits him. But," and at this he nosed into Will's hair, and Will felt almost giddy, "I have other ideas for celebrations."

"Oh? What're those?"

"I was thinking we might go to bed early," Hannibal said into his hair.

Will laughed. "Your idea of celebrating my recovery is with fucking?"

"Are you averse?"

"No," said Will. "Let's go."

\-----

Will had been a little afraid that Hannibal would have filled the bedroom with candles and scattered rose petals over the bed, but in fact the bedroom looked the same as it always did. There was, in fact, one candle, on the bedside table; it was scented, but Will wasn't sure what that scent was supposed to be. Not flowers, not fruit--maybe something woody? Will gave up trying to figure it out as he dropped his clothes on the floor and got onto the bed.

Hannibal followed with a little more elegance, though Will noticed that he left his clothes on the floor, too. He pushed Will down on the bed and put his hands all over Will's body, and then followed them with his lips, like he wanted to know every inch of Will's skin. "Do you have some kind of plan, here?" Will murmured.

"I do, but I'm open to suggestions." Hannibal looked down at Will. His hair fell in a soft fringe across his forehead. Will liked that look on him, much more so than the slicked-back psychiatrist look. "After all, this is a partnership."

Will smiled up at Hannibal. "Well, I'm fine with whatever my partner wants."

Hannibal smiled back, and Will almost laughed. He put his hands over his face.

"What's the matter?" said Hannibal. "I want to see you."

"No, no," said Will. "Do what you want. I want to be surprised."

Hannibal nosed around Will's chest at first and tongued the pulse point in Will's neck, which made him squirm. Hannibal buried his nose in Will's armpit and took a deep breath, which grossed Will out a little bit; he hadn't showered yet that day, and he had to stink. But Hannibal did it again, like he was taking deep breaths of something delicious. And then he scooted down the bed and buried his nose in Will's pubes, to do the same thing there.

"Jesus," Will said, his voice coming out a little higher than he'd like, and stopped breathing entirely when Hannibal moved to take Will's cock in his mouth. Will wasn't hard yet, so that was weird, but it didn't stop Hannibal from working Will like he was trying to set a world record. After a few minutes, Will was gloriously hard and panting, and he'd taken his hands away from his face to grip the sheets. He had his eyes squeezed shut. 

Hannibal stopped sucking. Will couldn't help the little whine that escaped through his nose. He could feel movement on the bed, and he opened his eyes. Hannibal was taking a couple pumps from a clear glass bottle on the bedside table. Will couldn't remember seeing it there before.

"Lubricant," Hannibal explained.

Will tensed. He couldn't help it. It didn't escape Hannibal's notice.

"Relax," Hannibal said. "Do you trust me?"

How else could he respond to that? Will nodded. Hannibal resumed his position between Will's legs, prompting with touch for Will to bend his knees. Will was still hard, his cock flopped against his belly, wet with spit and getting cold. Hannibal felt behind Will's balls, down to his hole, and rubbed against it. His finger felt slick and intrusive. Will swallowed.

Hannibal pressed a kiss to the side of Will's knee. "We'll try with just one finger, to begin. Are you ready?"

Will nodded, and Hannibal pressed in. Just a little. That feeling of slickness and intrusion did not cease, and Will was reminded, inexorably, of the doctor's office. He closed his eyes. The finger kept going until it brushed against that weird, intense point. That, too, reminded him of the doctor's office. Will could feel himself starting to get soft, which was when Hannibal bent his head down and took Will's cock back in his mouth.

Will gasped. His eyes flew open, but he couldn't look down. He didn't want to know what it looked like when Hannibal was going down on him; if he knew, then he'd never see anything else when he closed his eyes. He stared at the ceiling instead and tried to control his breathing.

Hannibal's tactic was working: Will's cock felt so good that he started to relax and warm up to the finger in his body, which was rubbing and rubbing around what Will knew was his prostate. It still felt weird and intense, but it was starting to feel good, too. Will curled his toes against the sheets. His harsh breaths were beginning to be accompanied by little grunts. He hadn't wanted to make any sound; it felt embarrassing. But once he let one out, it was followed by more. The noise seemed to encourage Hannibal, who continued to lavish attention on Will with his tongue and wriggling finger.

Will dug his heels into the mattress and tried to buck his hips. He couldn't seem to help it, the same way he couldn't help the noise. He wanted to thrust. It didn't seem to bother Hannibal, who just put his other arm over Will's hips and _leaned_. Will gasped. It felt a little like he was being pressed right down into the mattress, and he liked it. He liked being held down. He wanted to fight, but it was like fighting a brick wall. He could feel his pelvic region tightening.

Hannibal pulled away. Will made that frustrated little sound again. He looked over at Hannibal, with great effort. Hannibal was getting more lube.

"I was about to come," Will rasped.

"I know," Hannibal said. He sounded smug. Will let his head thud back against the pillows.

Hannibal didn't resume his activities right away. He circled Will's hole for a minute first, this time with two fingers, dipping in every once in a while. The lube was cold, and Will shied away, but soon it warmed up.

"Are you going to fuck me?" Will asked the ceiling.

"You need to be more specific with your questions," said Hannibal. "Are you asking if I'm going to penetrate you with my penis?"

"Yeah." Will's mouth felt dry.

"I wasn't planning on it." Hannibal pushed in those two fingers. It felt weird again, much like the first time. There was the sensation that Will had learned to interpret as pressure, but now there was also just a slight stretch. He felt full, and a little bit like he needed to go to the toilet. Then Hannibal's mouth closed over Will's cock again.

It went on like that for a little while. Hannibal would bring Will to the peak, and then back off just when Will thought he was going to tip over. Hannibal would add some lube, let Will cool down a little, and start the process all over again. Will lost track of time. He felt sweaty and wrung out. He wanted to smack Hannibal and kiss him. He was starting to get a little sore. He thought Hannibal must be getting sore, too.

"Hannibal," he groaned.

Hannibal stopped sucking to answer: "Yes, Will?"

Will hadn't actually intended Hannibal to answer. He banged his head back against the pillows.

"All right," Hannibal said. "All right." He bent his head back down.

Will came harder than he could ever remember coming in his life. He couldn't even think; it reminded him a little of getting stabbed. When he could see and breathe, Hannibal was kneeling over him and jerking himself, his bottom lip between his teeth. That sight gave Will a little jolt, deep in his gut, but there was no way he was getting it up again.

"I," Will began, but Hannibal shushed him. "I just want to see you," Hannibal said. "Let me look at you."

Will didn't think he could possibly be much to look at, all sweaty and dazed, but Hannibal was riveted. He came just a minute or two later, shooting little stripes of come over Will's bare chest. Hannibal gave a sigh of contentment and stretched himself down next to Will, his head pillowed on Will's shoulder, next to his spunk. Will could almost hear him purring.

"Am I gonna get to do that to you sometime?" Will slurred.

"If you like," said Hannibal. "I would like that."

\-----

An insistent electronic squealing roused Will from his sleep the next morning. At first he thought it was an alarm clock, but that made no sense; Hannibal didn't use an alarm, and neither did Will. Will crawled out of his foggy stupor enough to realize that it was his phone, and that his phone was on the bedside table.

Will struggled out from underneath the covers and grabbed for the phone, succeeding in knocking it to the floor. It stopped ringing. Will sighed and lay for a moment, one arm stretched over the side of the bed. He felt surprisingly sore all over, given that he hadn't done anything the night before except lie there.

The phone started ringing again. This time, Will gave a heroic lurch and managed to fetch the phone up from the floor. "'Ello?"

"It's the Ripper." Jack sounded elated and stern all at once.

"G'morning to you too." said Will. He rubbed one hand over his face. His mouth felt like it was full of ash. "You sure?"

"I am sure. I just need you to confirm. There's something different about this one."

"Then how are you so sure?"

"I haven't been chasing the Ripper for this many fucking years to not be sure. Are you coming?"

Will sighed. "Yeah. What's the address?"

Jack gave him an address in Silver Spring and hung up. Will stumbled into the bathroom and washed his face. He had to go into his own room to get dressed. He should probably move more of his clothes into Hannibal's bedroom. It was while he was there, pulling on his pants, that he realized that not only had he slept all the way through the night, but he hadn't had any nightmares. Was it because his encephalitis was finally cured? Or was it because of their...activities last night? Will shook his head at himself and grabbed a shirt from the dresser before going downstairs.

"Good morning," Hannibal said warmly. Sure enough, a cup of coffee was waiting for Will on the counter. It was a little colder than Will would have liked, but he gulped it down anyway. "Breakfast?"

Will shook his head. "Jack called. He wants me to look at a crime scene."

"Take a piece of fruit."

"Fine." Will took a banana from the fruit bowl, trying hard not to think about the sexual connotations of that, given the events of last night. Hannibal looked much better than Will felt.

"Will you be home for lunch?" Hannibal asked.

"I'll try," said Will. "I'll call if I'm not going to make it."

Hannibal leaned forward and brushed a kiss across Will's lips, the kind of closed-mouthed peck that Will had thought existed only for couples in movies and TV shows.

\-----

The living room fluttered with camera flashes and blue-gloved technicians scurrying, dusting, bagging. At the center of the commotion a man lay spreadeagle on his back. His pants were on, but not his shirt. All the better to display the bouquet: roses, carnations, tulips, some other flowers that Will could not identify. There were so many that they overflowed onto the carpet and obscured the broken ribs and red flesh. No blood, or very little of it. He'd been killed somewhere else and brought here, which did not surprise Will in the least.

"Robert Faraday, age 49," Beverly recited. "I mean, we're assuming, since this is his house. Divorced, lives alone. Works as an auditor for the IRS."

Zeller snorted. "In other words, an easy target with no shortage of people who wouldn't mind seeing him dead."

"This isn't the work of any old grudge, though," said Price.

They all looked at Will. Will did not look at them.

"Everyone out!" Jack barked.

The forensics technicians scattered. Will heard the door shut behind him. He went and stood at Faraday's feet, gazing down at him like an artist might at his work.

_I cracked him open, I hollowed him out. Flowers for love, flowers for passion...you know the general outline, even if you don't know the precise words. This man has been made a vessel, to hold the contents of my adoration._

_You know whose design it is. It's mine._

The elegance, the clean lines, the flowers, the...whimsy, for lack of a better word. "It's the Ripper," Will said. He turned and was unsurprised to see that Jack had remained in the room with him. "What's different about this one?"

Jack gestured, and Will followed him to the basement. There, on a table in the laundry room that was presumably for folding clothes, the Ripper had arranged Faraday's organs, neatly and at right angles, as if they were going to be photographed for an anatomy textbook: lungs, heart, kidneys, liver, spleen, colon…

"No surgical trophies," Will realized.

Jack nodded. "It's all here. And he wanted us to know it. What's going on, Will? What's it mean?"

Will stared at the wall above the table. Why the laundry room? That was the problem with the Ripper: most of the things he did, he did just to amuse himself. There could be any number of reasons why he'd chosen the laundry room and not, say, the kitchen. He might have picked the laundry room just because he liked the lighting. But it felt significant, somehow, like the flowers. Will cast his gaze around, like he might find the message written on the ceiling. But there was nothing: a cupboard, a washing machine, a dryer. The room smelled like warm meat.

"Will?" Jack sounded concerned.

"I don't know." Will pinched the bridge of his nose. "I--" He dug his phone out of his pocket. He had a text message from Hannibal: _Lunch is ready._ "I have to go. It's definitely the Ripper, and definitely something has changed, but--I have to go. I'll call you if I have any epiphanies." He turned and bounded up the stairs two at a time.

"Come in tomorrow!" Jack called after him.

\-----

The inside of Hannibal's home was much warmer than the outside, almost stifling. Delicious smells had made it all the way to the foyer. Will dropped his bag on the hall table and made his way to the kitchen, where Hannibal was seated in the corner armchair, just setting aside his tablet.

"Hey," said Will.

"Welcome home," Hannibal greeted, standing. "How's Uncle Jack?"

"Uncle Jack sends his regards," Will said, though Jack had done nothing of the sort. Then again, Jack didn't know that he _should_ be sending his regards, that he and Hannibal were a unit. "What's for lunch?"

Hannibal was moving toward the stove, where something sat in a covered pot. "Pulled pork. It only needs a moment to heat."

The pulled pork was superb, as good as anything Will had ever eaten at a barbeque competition. Will wondered where Hannibal had found the time. Will had been gone all morning, but that wasn't long enough for good pulled pork. Hannibal ate his sandwich with a knife and fork, enduring Will's barbs with good humor and affection. Will liked the way the corners of his eyes crinkled when he smiled. 

"You're in a good mood today," Will observed.

"Am I?" Hannibal looked up, eyes twinkling, his mouth curved like a cat's. "I was reflecting on our relationship this morning," Hannibal offered. "Perhaps that's what's put me in a good mood. I can safely say I've never felt this way about anyone."

Will smiled down at the smears of sauce on his plate. "Yeah. Same."

"I'm glad to hear it."

Will took another bite of his sandwich and thought about relationships, and feeling. "Do you know anything about, ah, flowers?"

Hannibal raised his eyebrows. "I don't consider myself much of a gardener," he said, which Will found a little shocking; but perhaps what Hannibal meant by that was that he wasn't competition or professional level. "What do you want to know?"

"You know flower language?"

"Ah." Hannibal's expression cleared. "A little. Red roses for love, blue roses for mystery, white roses for purity."

"What about orange roses?"

"That's rather unusual. I might have a book on the subject."

Hannibal's library was extensive and packed with esoterica. But Will shook his head. "Never mind. The others'll look it up. That's their job."

"Is this about the crime scene that Jack called you away to today?" Hannibal asked.

Will nodded. He kept his eyes fixed on his food. "It's the Ripper." He wondered if it was okay to tell Hannibal that. But he would have told Hannibal about that before, even if they weren't living together, sleeping together. He would have told Hannibal about it in his office, as Hannibal's "patient."

Hannibal's knife and fork clinked against each other, across the table. "It's been, what, two years? Perhaps more."

"Jack probably knows it down to the day," Will muttered.

"Why now, I wonder?"

Will chewed his last bite of sandwich slowly and pulled his napkin up out of his lap to wipe his mouth. "The Ripper's always been capricious," Will said. "That's why he's been so hard to profile. And he's careful; he doesn't leave any clues. But even if we did find a clue, we wouldn't know if it was something he left there by accident or on purpose. He doesn't do anything he does for any particular reason. But there's something different now."

"How so?" 

Will didn't look at him. He summoned the scene in his mind's eye: the splayed body, bristling with flowers in the empty bowl of his ribs; the organs, laid out in the laundry room. "It was...deliberate. The others, they were like private jokes, something to make the Ripper chuckle at his own cleverness. But this one was a message. It was for someone else."

Hannibal's knife and fork clinked again. Will looked up. This time, it was because Hannibal was laying them parallel to each other on his plate, the way he did when he'd finished a meal. Nothing remained but sauce. "A message of what? To whom?"

"I don't know yet," said Will. "We'll be meeting tomorrow, after the autopsy. Jack hasn't told me the time yet."

Hannibal rose and began to clear their dishes. Will, automatically, rose to help him. "Do you think Jack will suspend the hunt for The Bleeder to focus all efforts on the Ripper?"

That hadn't even occurred to Will. Would Jack want Will to leave Hannibal's house? "Probably not," he decided. "It'd blow months of work, and right now it's a wait-and-see thing anyway. No reason we can't do both. Not like I can't work the Ripper case from here."

\-----

"Roses, carnations, tulips, and something called spider flower," Beverly reeled off. She had the wilting flowers laid out on one of the metal tables, grouped by color and type.

"The language of flowers," Zeller picked up, like they'd rehearsed this. "The problem is that flower language depends on who you ask. A flower that symbolizes innocence and purity according to one source can mean first love in another source."

Jack's eyebrows had been inching steadily upward. "So what do _these_ flowers mean?"

"Fortunately, he chose symbolic flowers that are a little off the beaten path," Zeller said. 

"Red carnations and red tulips are love no matter who you ask, so that's clear enough," said Beverly, pointing; she'd placed the red flowers next to each other.

"Though one source said that carnations can also represent fascination," Zeller butted in. "Like the orange rose. The _lavender_ rose symbolizes enchantment, while the spider flower means 'elope with me.'"

The air grew still and delicate.

"These are unusual flowers," Jack said at last. "Some of them. Some florist somewhere must remember this order being placed."

"We're on it," said Price. "We've been calling every florist in the Chesapeake area, trying to see if anyone remembers selling the order. Nada."

"The orange and lavender flowers are actually white roses that have been dyed," Beverly put in. "He probably dyed them himself. Heck, he might have grown some of these flowers himself. Spider flower isn't exactly something you see at the florist."

Will let the technical chatter fade into the background. _Elope with me_. That was directed. Pointed. The Ripper had constructed this murder to be seen by someone. Well, all of them had been constructed to be seen by someone--The Ripper loved nothing if not showing off--but this was different. No surgical trophies, but flowers…

"He's in love," Will said.

"Him? Or the victim?" Beverly said, after a startled pause.

Will shook his head. "This isn't a crime of passion. It's too precise, too methodical. It's...a love letter."

"A love letter," Jack repeated. He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Are you telling me that he's got--he's got--some kind of girlfriend or something that he's showing off for?"

"Could be a boyfriend," Price interjected.

Will looked down at the spider flower. _Elope with me._ "There's someone he wants to be a partner to him. Someone he wants to kill with him, maybe."

"A murder wife," Beverly muttered. "Joy."

"Or husband!" Price chimed in.

"Whoever this girlfriend--or boyfriend--is, we need to find them, and fast," said Jack. "Any clues as to who or what we should be looking for?"

"As usual, it's like he wore a hazmat suit," said Beverly. "And if he brought someone else in to admire the work, she--or he," she added, at Price's look, "didn't leave anything either."

"Well, now we have something else to be on the lookout for," said Jack. He gave Will a pointed look. "Let me know if you think of anything else."

\-----

"The Ripper's in love," Will told Hannibal that night, over dinner.

Hannibal's utensils paused over his plate. "Is he?"

"Yeah. That last body...it was a love letter." Will took a sip of wine. "You know, it's funny, I'm almost happy for him."

Hannibal's eyebrows lifted. "Happy?"

Will focused on cutting up a few more bites of chicken before answering. "If it'd been six months ago, I would've...I dunno, I would've been jealous, maybe. Or cynical. Oh, the Ripper thinks he's found love, when no such thing exists, and certainly not for him." Will looked down at his hand holding the fork and fiddled with it a little, watching the light wink off the stainless steel. "I think I didn't believe I could be with someone, not and be myself, and it would've galled me to think that the Ripper could find companionship, but not me. But now, it's like, hey, maybe that old line is true: maybe there really is someone out there for everyone." Will felt a smile tugging at his lips. He let it, even though he knew he had to look silly. "So, good for you, Ripper. Now cut it out with the murder." He let out a little laugh. "Maybe his paramour can talk him out of it."

"Yes," Hannibal said, smiling. "Maybe."


	10. Chapter 10

Will's phone rang while he was at the dog park. He held up one hand and gave Linda an apologetic smile while he answered. Linda smiled and walked away a little to give Will some privacy. Will turned his back to her.

"It's the Ripper," Jack said.

"Hello to you too." Will squinted up at the overcast sky. "It's been two days. That fits the pattern."

"And the bodies are displayed," said Jack.

"Bodies?"

"Bodies," Jack confirmed. "And I hear it's quite the display. Local sheriffs are holding it, so you'll get it fresh."

"Goody," Will muttered.

"I'm on my way," said Jack. "Are you coming now?"

"Yeah," said Will. "I'm on my way."

\-----

Will started seeing signs for the caves 15 miles out. He didn't have the radio on, and he could glimpse restaurants and motels by the roadside with names like SPELUNKERS DINER and CAVERN HOTEL. Then 7 miles, then 5, then he was turning off the highway and following the road down to a gravel parking lot. The sheriffs' cars were there, as well as a couple of nondescript sedans. He was pretty sure the red Corolla was Beverly's. They should probably start carpooling to crime scenes together, if this was going to keep happening. Will turned off the engine and sat in the parking lot for a while, staring into space.

A deputy came crunching up with an inquisitive tilt to his eyebrows. Will fumbled his FBI badge out of his pocket and held it up to the window. The man's posture relaxed. Will rolled down his window.

"Will Graham?" said the deputy, even though it said Will's name right on the badge. When Will nodded, he said, "We've been waiting for you," with a local twang that made Will inexplicably homesick. "Follow me. We're just down in the entrance."

They didn't speak during the long, unsteady walk down to the cave entrance. Crime scene tape had been staked around the hole in the ground. Will could just make out a metal handrail and the beginnings of stairs.

"Watch your step," said the deputy.

Will descended.

Cool air wafted out of the cavern, smelling just slightly of damp. It was dark at first, and then light again: lightbulbs, strung overhead. Will could hear footsteps and the low murmur of voices. The stairs ended as the entryway opened up, and Will was in a cavern, with the sensation of a ceiling high overhead. 

Jack came striding across the cavern floor. "Over here," he said.

Will followed him to the far side of the cavern, where a shallow pool of water glowed under the electric lights. A pile of evidence markers sat on the ground at the edge. Will stood next to them and looked.

It was beautiful.

That thought came easily. There was no visible blood, no cracked-open sternums, no tongues or viscera. The two bodies--one man, one woman--had been posed almost demurely, facedown in the water, their limbs shaped into graceful curves. They were nude, and the Ripper had painted them with some kind of iridescent paint, dark golds and reds in abstract blobs. The bodies had been preserved with resin, the way fishermen preserved their trophies.

_I am an artist; I am painting a picture. The placement is deliberate. I want this to be familiar, recognized. I may see pigs, but you see differently. They are a gift to you._

_Do you see? Do you see my design, Will?_

Will took a step back. As he did, he saw the carefully arranged pile of rocks, placed just off to the side of the bodies: four smaller rocks around one larger one, like the legs and head coming out of a turtle. Will sucked in his breath and put one shaking hand over his mouth.

_No one can be fully aware of another human being unless we love them. With that love we see potential in our beloved. Through that love we allow our beloved to see their potential. Expressing that love, our beloved's potential comes true._

_I love you, Will. I see your potential. And now you see me._

Will opened his eyes; he hadn't realized they'd been closed. The skin around them was tight, and moisture clung to his eyelashes. He wiped it away under the guise of rubbing his forehead, but he wasn't sure he fooled anyone, especially Beverly, who was regarding him with narrowed eyes. Will took one deep breath, and then another.

"What did you get?" Jack said, behind him.

"It's the same as the last one." His voice came out hoarse. Will cleared the frog from his throat before continuing. He looked into the craggy space above the bodies. "It's a declaration of love."

"I knew it!" Zeller crowed from several feet away. When everyone looked at him, he said, "What? It's a koi pond. That's a pun."

"'Koi' also means 'love' in Japanese," Price supplied. "Different character, but pronounced the same."

"He's in love," Will confirmed, and took a deep breath for the rest of it, "and he doesn't know if the other person loves him back."

Silence settled like dust over the scene.

"So...not so much murder wife, then?" Beverly said.

"Or husband," Price interjected.

"He's changing," Jack muttered, chin sunk nearly into his breast as he gazed down at the tableau. "I don't like it. If his MO changes...he's been so successful for so many years--why change now?"

"Love makes fools of us all," said Price.

Jack roused himself, rolling his shoulders in a way that suggested water off a duck's back. "Well, maybe it means he'll make a mistake. Has made a mistake. Let's get to work."

\-----

Will mumbled out some excuse to escape the crime scene. He wasn't a technician or otherwise needed for evidence collection and Jack was used to him escaping as quickly as humanly possible, so he succeeded. Will threw himself into the car and flung himself back onto the freeway in a way that suggested he might drive himself into a tree next.

He had to be wrong. But he had never been wrong before, not about something like this.

Why hadn't he told Jack?

Will kept the needle five miles over the speed limit as he reviewed all the things he _should_ have said to Jack.

 _It's Hannibal_ , he should have said.

 _What?_ Jack would have replied. _What the hell are you talking about, Will?_

 _It's Hannibal_ , Will would have insisted. _He's in love with me. I know because--_ No. Not like this. Jack didn't need to know about personal declarations. _There's a painting, it's of koi, it looks just like this. I've seen it in his house._ That's what he would have said.

 _You're making this claim based on the existence of a painting?_ Jack sounded dubious.

_Trust me._

But it didn't matter what he could have, should have, would have said, because Will hadn't said any of it. And now he was in the car, speeding back toward Baltimore. And what was he going to do? Confront Hannibal? What was _Hannibal_ expecting Will to do?

\-----

The dogs rushed Will at the door, wagging their tails and barking. Will shushed them as he pushed his way inside. Their tails beat against his legs.

"Hannibal?" Will called, but received only his own echo in reply. This house was too goddamn big. He stood there in the foyer for a few moments, listening to his own heartbeat. Maybe he was glad that Hannibal wasn't home.

The painting wasn't in Will's bedroom--what had once been Will's bedroom. Will went through the living room, then the music room, the dining room, and the kitchen by turns. The house had a still, breathless quality to it, like maybe Hannibal had abandoned the place entirely. The thought made Will's heart pound, but he couldn't name the emotion associated with it.

He found the painting in the pantry of all places, among wine bottles and hanging salamis and dried bundles of herbs. The dry, cool air smelled strongly of aged meat and cheese and herbs. Will left the light off, and the white-and-gold fish seemed to glow, the dark water expanding far beyond the borders of the painting. He stared at the fish, the turtle, and cast his mind back to that first victim, Faraday. Now that he knew the voice was Hannibal's, what would he say?

_Something is different, isn't it? I've changed. You've changed me._

_This time my art comes with purpose. Before, it was to amuse myself, art for the sake of art. My only goal was to bring more beauty to the world; I turned ugliness into worthiness. That was my design._

_Now: what do you see?_

Will frowned. Why the laundry room? It meant something; it had to. Hannibal hadn't taken his usual surgical trophies--did the laundry room indicate that he was washing himself clean? Turning over a new leaf? But then he'd killed two more, put them down in the cave…

Down in the cave...like down in the laundry room...

Will looked down, then got down on his knees and really inspected the floor. He found it with his fingertips, a square outline almost invisible to the eye. When he pressed a corner with the heel of his hand it sprang open with a click and a hiss. No other sound, like a door that was used often.

Stairs led down into the darkness. Cold air wafted up. Will took a deep breath and descended.

\-----

The dogs milled around Will, confused and excited by his frenetic movements as he tried to stuff his fly binder in his duffel bag. It wouldn't zip up. He didn't have room for the rest of his fishing equipment in the car, not with the dogs in there too. Shit. Shit. He'd have to come back for it later, but he didn't want to come back. He didn't want to see this house, or Hannibal, ever again. 

"Will," said Hannibal. He stood in the doorway of the bedroom. Will hadn't heard the front door. Buffy ran up to him and put her front paws on his foot.

"I saw the basement," Will said tightly. "You wanted me to see it, didn't you?"

"Yes."

Will paused in his fruitless efforts to zip up the duffel. He'd just leave the binder poking out. "There was meat down there. In the freezer."

Hannibal didn't answer.

Will swallowed. It was hard to force the next words out. "They weren't surgical trophies."

"Surgical, perhaps, in a manner of speaking," Hannibal said. "But they weren't kept as trophies, no."

"You were feeding it to me."

"Not just you."

Will barked out a harsh laugh. "Glad to know I wasn't special."

"You are unique," Hannibal said, sharply. Buffy whined at the tone of his voice.

Will had known, the moment he'd flicked on the light switch at the bottom of the stairs, that the space below the house was _Hannibal_. Not the cobalt blue dining room, nor the decorative ostrich eggs; not the Japanese garden, and not the harpsichord in practically every room: those were the suits that Hannibal wore. Exactly like. Plaid suits and paisley ties that marked Hannibal as eccentric and European and hid his true nature. That sterile and terrifying place at the bottom of the stairs: that was what Hannibal was.

_No one can tell what he is._

Will slung the duffel over his shoulder. He looked at Hannibal's left shoulder as he spoke. "I didn't tell Jack."

"I hoped you wouldn't," Hannibal said, after a brief pause.

It made Will bristle. "I still might. I don't know."

Hannibal did that peering thing, like he had the first time they met in Jack's office. Will looked away. "Why didn't you tell him?"

"I don't know." It came out louder than Will intended. The words echoed.

Hannibal didn't reply. He didn't have to. Shrieking accusations had sounded in Will's head all the way home from the caves. He bulled past Hannibal, making sure not to so much as brush his sleeve, and whistled the dogs to him. They came in a torrent of fur and clicking nails, tails wagging and tongues lolling, and followed him down the hall and out the front door and down the front steps, where he'd left the Volvo. He popped the hatch, and the dogs piled in. Will counted them as they went, automatically. He came up one short. He counted again.

He turned. Hannibal stood in the doorway, one hand on the doorframe. Will didn't look at his face. Buffy sat at his feet.

Will snapped his fingers. "Buffy."

Buffy looked up at Hannibal. Hannibal did not look at her. He was looking at Will, but Will still refused to look at his face. He looked at Buffy. Buffy looked at Will too. But she didn't budge from her spot.

"What the fuck did you do to her?" Will demanded.

"I didn't do anything to her." Hannibal actually sounded offended.

Will's hands curled into fists. "You know what? Never mind. You can keep her." He slammed the hatch shut and stomped around to the driver's side door. "I'll come back for the rest of my stuff later," he yelled out the window, and took off.

\-----

Will heard the phone ring while he was dry heaving by the side of the highway, somewhere between Maryland and Virginia. He wiped his mouth and got back in the car. The phone registered a missing call from Jack Crawford. He threw the phone into the backseat and rejoined the flow of traffic. The phone rang again when Will was still fifteen minutes away from home, and then again while Will was pulling into the driveway. Will finally called him back after he'd gotten the door open and dropped his duffel bag inside.

"Everything all right, Will?" Jack asked.

"Yeah." Will pushed his hair up off his forehead. "Yeah, why?"

"Surveillance reported that you left Lecter's place in a hurry, took all the dogs and everything. Looked like maybe a fight."

"Did you talk to Hannibal?"

"I did, when you wouldn't pick up. He said it was staged."

"Yeah." Will swallowed. "Yeah, we uh--you know, the other victims were all, ah, they were taken after a big fight with their significant other. Significant other spends a night away, more than one night, comes back to find his boyfriend missing. We thought maybe this would be a way of drawing our killer out."

Jack was silent for a moment. "You should've run this by me first."

"We thought maybe if we hurried things up, we could focus on the Ripper," said Will. "Only one left in the sounder, maybe two."

"We'll up the scrutiny on Lecter's place, in case you're right and The Bleeder decides to make a move. Call me if you get any more bright ideas, okay?"

"Yeah, sure."

Will hung up.

\-----

Will lay awake in his house that night and listened to the wind.

His mattress was an absolute piece of shit. It'd been fine when he moved into this house ten years ago--or had it been more than that now? Now it was saggy and limp. Hannibal's mattresses were all memory foam, even the ones in the guest bedrooms. Will had always scoffed at the commercials on TV--what the hell did anyone need with a bed that you could stand a wine glass on? But he had to admit he'd slept better at Hannibal's than anywhere else.

Maybe there'd been other reasons for that. 

Will closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

The river bloomed before his mind's eye. Gold and copper foliage lined both sides of the water, which crawled dark green in front of him. Will took a deep breath and felt the muscles in his back unwind. Another breath brought the smell of crisp autumn air, the water, damp earth. The water was cold, and Will could feel it rushing by him, but he remained dry in his waders.

_Relax, Will. You're safe here._

Will opened his eyes. God, he'd let himself be hypnotized by the Chesapeake Ripper.


	11. Chapter 11

The refrigerator light illuminated two lonely bottles of ketchup and mustard and a box of baking soda. Will shut the door and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. At least there was coffee. It was shitty pre-ground Folgers coffee, the flavor flat and stale after months of sitting in the canister neglected. Will told himself it didn't matter: it was caffeine.

According to the research Will had been able to find on the Internet, Hannibal had been telling the truth about one thing: you were either suggestible to hypnosis, or you were not. Will apparently was, because he'd fallen asleep in Hannibal's bed, to Hannibal's voice, all those times. But it hadn't been like the hypnosis that Will was reading about now, either; Hannibal hadn't had him focus on an object...unless you counted Hannibal's voice.

Had he really been asleep? Hypnosis was supposedly effective for hardening false memories. Had Hannibal made any other suggestions, while Will had drifted? Had he suggested to Will that Will should find it desirable to quit his FBI job and move to France? Or that Will should want to be with Hannibal at all? To kiss him, and do all those things--

Will got up and fed the dogs.

There wasn't much for them, either: a few cans of wet food, and one opened bag of dry kibble that Will had left behind when he'd moved to Baltimore. Will sat down and made a list on a yellow legal pad. Eggs. Coffee. Milk. Eukanuba. He stared out the window, tapping the end of his pen against the paper.

Hannibal was the Chesapeake Ripper.

And what would he do, now that he knew that Will knew? Now that Will had left? Would he come after Will, in order to preserve his secret? Would Hannibal kill him? If he'd wanted to, he could've done it easily yesterday, when he'd come home and Will had been packing. Made it look like an accident. Or made Will disappear entirely, as if he'd never come home from the caves. But there was the FBI surveillance on his house, and too many potential witnesses in the neighborhood. Much easier to come out to Will's remote home that was barely in the city limits of Wolf Trap, Virginia.

He could have come in the middle of the night, but he hadn't. Will thought about the way Hannibal had stood on the doorstep and watched Will drive away, Buffy by his feet. The way Hannibal had looked when Will said that he hadn't told Jack.

Why hadn't he told Jack?

Will tore the top sheet off the pad and went to the store.

\-----

He could see, now, under the fluorescent lighting, what Hannibal so disliked about Giant Foods. The produce was all uniform in size and shape, and there was very little of it compared to the aisles of boxed mixes, canned soups, and freezer cases of frozen corn dogs and Lean Cuisines. Will dropped a bag of frozen tamales in his cart and tried not to hear Hannibal's dismayed snort. They were vegetarian tamales, too. He didn't feel like eating any meat right now.

Ground coffee, waxy apples, instant grits. Whole milk, though: that was something he and Hannibal had agreed on right away, even if Hannibal had some fancy organic milk in his fridge that wasn't homogenized, so you had to shake it before you drank it or put it in your coffee. But, Will had to admit, it tasted great. It tasted like the milk of his dimly remembered childhood.

Once home, Will put away the groceries before taking the dogs for a long walk in the fields behind his house. The dogs sprinted over the bare patches of dirt and colorless grass and wrestled with each other. The cold air felt good in Will's lungs and against his skin. This was so much better than the fenced-in dog park. It had been good, to watch his dogs playing with strange dogs, becoming more sociable. But they hadn't needed that. They had each other.

They went back to the house. The dogs milled around at first, juiced up from their long run. Chester was the first to flop down on his side. That seemed to be a signal for the others to do the same, and before long all the dogs were dozing. Will remained standing, thinking.

The house had become small while Will was away. But that wasn't what bothered him. What bothered him was that it didn't _need_ to be small. He had two stories. Two bedrooms, one bathroom, even a tiny attic. But the second story was full of furniture that had belonged to the childless old couple who'd lived here and died here. He'd bought the house as-is and just moved in. It hadn't been hard to arrange his few belongings.

Will climbed the stairs and turned into the master bedroom. He hadn't covered the things in plastic, so everything was thick with dust. A queen-sized bed, with an enormous wooden headboard and a naked, faded mattress. A set of dresser drawers. A wardrobe that probably qualified as a genuine antique. The other bedroom held storage boxes, a coffee table on its side, folding chairs, miscellaneous old kitchen appliances, wrapping paper long bleached with age. All the detritus of a life lived in one place. Two lives, wrapped up with each other. Apparently, after he'd gone, she'd followed not soon after.

That was the window he'd climbed out of, what felt like years ago, when his brain had been on fire. Hannibal must have known, Will realized, even before he'd made that appointment. Known for a long time, maybe. Hannibal had suggested it was stress, maybe PTSD. He'd let it fester. And then he'd taken Will to the doctor, to the hospital afterward, and then home.

Will went back downstairs. He put his jacket and hat back on and grabbed the car keys.

\-----

Will was already in Baltimore before he realized that he wasn't going to Hannibal's house. He sat at the intersection until the light was green and someone honked at him. Will flipped him off and turned right instead of going straight. He was not surprised when he found himself in front of Dr. Du Maurier's house ten minutes later.

He rang the doorbell and waited long enough that he thought maybe she wasn't home, or wasn't answering the door. It wasn't their usual day. Eventually, he heard the click of heels coming toward the door.

Dr. Du Maurier did not look the least bit surprised to see Will on her doorstep. "Will Graham," she said. "I suppose I've been expecting you." She stepped aside to let him in.

Will waited for further explanation, but none came. "Sorry to bother you," he offered. Now he wished he'd brought a bottle of wine or something, or his checkbook. Hannibal had been paying for Will's appointments with Dr. Du Maurier. Will wondered how much Dr. Du Maurier charged, or had charged. No, he decided with a hot rush; Hannibal could pay for this one too. It was the least that bastard could do. He stepped over the threshold.

"It's no bother." Dr. Du Maurier led the way to her therapy arena. Her heels were muffled on the carpet. Will wondered if she ever used this room for entertaining guests. Wasn't it weird, to see a friend or relative sitting in the same chair as her patients? Or patient, as the case may be.

Will sat in his chair. "Hannibal was here."

"Why do you say that?" Dr. Du Maurier took her own seat, crossing her legs.

"Did he call last night?" Will asked. "Did he sound upset?"

"Do you believe there's a reason that Hannibal would be upset?" Dr. Du Maurier asked.

Will flexed his fingers atop his armrests. "I don't know." he said at last. "It turns out I don't know Hannibal at all.."

"Is it that you don't know him," said Dr. Du Maurier, "or that you know too much about him? Things that you would rather not know."

Will studied the carpet beneath Dr. Du Maurier's feet. Hannibal had been here, then; had probably talked about his fight with Will last night, albeit in couched terms. That was why Dr. Du Maurier was dressed as well as she was, even alone in her own home, and why she had been unsurprised to see Will there. He wondered how much she knew. She must suspect--Dr. Du Maurier was far too intelligent not to, and she heard more intimate things from Hannibal than anyone else, except perhaps for Will.

"Empathy is an uncomfortable gift, both a blessing and a curse," said Dr. Du Maurier. "With empathy comes understanding, and with understanding comes compassion. It's difficult to hate someone that we feel empathy for. Easier to love."

"That doesn't make it okay," Will ground out.

"To love someone is not to explain or justify their actions," said Dr. Du Maurier. "Or do you believe that only flawless people are worthy of love?"

"You say that like love is a choice," said Will. "To love or not to love: that is the question."

"Isn't it?" Dr. Du Maurier brushed her hair back behind her shoulder. "I told you in one of our last conversations that in therapy, we analyze and discuss thoughts and emotions, distinguish one from the other, and see how they bear against our actions. Feelings result in action, which are mediated by thought. Through that, actions are the influence of our feelings in the world. Perhaps you don't choose the emotion that you label love, but how it manifests is an entirely different matter." She paused. "Do you believe Hannibal loves you?"

Will let the seconds drip. Dr. Du Maurier waited.

"I believe that he hungers for me daily," Will said, slowly, feeling the weight of each word in his mouth before he released it into the world, "and that he finds nourishment at the sight of me."

Dr. Du Maurier inclined her head. "And you?"

Will didn't answer.

\-----

Hannibal's house wasn't far from Dr. Du Maurier's. Not far enough, really. Will ended up in Hannibal's driveway far too soon, his hands clammy on the steering wheel. He cut the engine and sat there for a few moments, eyeing the door. It remained shut. Maybe Hannibal was in the back of the house, or upstairs, and hadn't heard Will's car.

Will got out of the car. He went up the front steps. He knocked, loudly, using the brass door knocker. He waited, shoulders hunched and fingers in his pockets. Nobody answered, but Will heard a snuffling and scratching on the other side of the door. He used his key.

Buffy burst out of the doorway at him, barking and barking, her stubby little tail whirring like helicopter blades. She dashed away to relieve herself in some of the ivy by the front steps and came right back again, yipping and putting her front paws up on Will's legs.

"Shh, shh," Will mumbled absently as he made his way inside. Buffy dashed ahead of him and then back, still barking and whining with excitement. The inside of the house was cold. Will checked the kitchen first; everything seemed to be in order, but the smell of just-cooked food didn't linger, even though it wasn't long after Hannibal's usual lunchtime. Will hadn't been at Dr. Du Maurier's house that long. Had Hannibal come home and then left again? Or had he not come home at all? Was he out on an errand? Or maybe he was at his office?

Will's stomach clenched. He turned around. Buffy was waiting for him under the dining room table, where she used to like to sit while he and Hannibal ate. The fist in Will's stomach tightened.

"Where's Hannibal?" he whispered to her. Buffy just looked up at him and wagged her tail.

There was something tucked into her collar. Will knelt and clicked his tongue at her. She crawled forward, and Will was able to undo the catch. A folded piece of paper fell out.

_Don't forget the flowers. I'm with Martin at Hearts & Cranes._

Will knelt there with the piece of paper in his hand, the back of his neck crawling. _Don't forget the flowers?_ What the hell was that supposed to mean? Hannibal couldn't possibly be thinking about their dinner party, of all things. Will sat on the floor for a moment, staring at Buffy as she stared at him, before finally getting to his feet and going back to the car.

\-----

Hearts & Cranes had a soothing interior of off-whites and pastels, refrigerators full of flowers, and wire racks full of cards. You could buy crepe paper in bulk and ribbon by the yard here, as well as fountain pens to go with your fine stationery. The stenciled writing on the wall advertised that they were a _celebration_ store; that they accompanied you on your life's journey and took care of the details while you took care of the joys. Will took that to mean that they didn't do funerals.

Gerry was there, talking to a salesgirl, judging from her nametag. He was with a thinner man with straw-blond hair that Will didn't recognize.

"Will!" Gerry exclaimed. "What're you doing here?"

"Just checking on the flowers for the party," Will said.

"Hannibal Lecter gets his flowers from Hearts & Cranes too, huh?" Gerry said happily. "I _told_ you, Robert: they're the best. Everybody uses them. Robert and I are planning my sister's baby shower," Gerry informed Will. "We're so excited."

Robert nodded and gave Will a thin smile that he would not have described as _excited_.

"Um, congratulations," said Will.

He was saved from having to make some kind of excuse to get out of the conversation by another teenaged sales associate, this one with brown braids that spilled over both shoulders. Her nametag said TINA. "Can I help you?"

"Yeah, I'm uh." Will squared his shoulders. "Checking on the flowers for, ah, the Hannibal Lecter order?"

"Right this way," she said. "I'll need to check in the computer."

Will followed her quite gratefully to the counter. When he judged that Gerry and Robert were re-absorbed in whatever baby shower paraphernalia they were discussing, he lowered his voice and said, "Actually, I'm looking for Martin?"

Tina raised her eyebrows. "He's not in today."

"Ah," Will said. "Can you tell me where he might be?"

"I dunno," she said. "We're not friends, we just work together."

But something off to the side had caught Will's eye: a refrigerated case filled with white flowers. White roses, white lilies, white carnations, and many other flowers that Will didn't know the names to.

"Does Hannibal come here for flowers often?" Will asked.

Tina's fingers darted across the keyboard. "A few times a year, it looks like."

"Was he here recently?" Will asked. "Not just to place the order for the party, but to buy some flowers. Maybe white flowers, that he could dye himself."

Her fingers hesitated over the keyboard this time. Her brows furrowed. "May I ask why you're asking?"

Will fished his FBI badge out of his pocket and flashed it, hoping she didn't see the Special Investigator title or know what it meant. Her mouth formed a little O of surprise, but she did find the information that Will had asked for. "Yes, at the same time he placed the order for the party, he did buy some miscellaneous flowers for himself."

"Who rang up that order?" Will asked.

"Martin."

The back of Will's neck prickled. "How long has Martin worked here?"

"I dunno," said Tina. "A year, maybe?"

Tina couldn't tell Will much about Martin. They were just coworkers. He was older, like maybe in his late twenties? Early thirties? White guy, brown hair, tall. Taller than Will. They didn't have much in common. He didn't talk much anyway, just kept to himself and did the work. He was the one who went out and made deliveries, when there were deliveries. She gave Will a copy of Martin's job application. Will thanked her and left.

Something loomed at the edge of Will's peripheral vision. He could see it now: Martin, this dark and amorphous shape behind the counter of a popular florist-- _celebration_ store, where people like Gerry and Robert went to plan someone's baby shower. Where people like Hannibal Lecter bought flowers for his dinner party. Where, according to Gerry, everybody went. Martin knew who was having a wedding or a baby shower. He knew their addresses; in fact, he made the deliveries.

Jack called as Will was on his way to the address on Martin's job application.

"Thought you were staying away, giving The Bleeder a chance at Lecter," said Jack. "Surveillance reported that you dropped in this morning."

"Just picking up a few things," said Will. "I'll stay away another night, give The Bleeder another chance. Surveillance reported no activity at all, other than me?"

"Lecter left the house and came back a few times. Got a delivery. Nothing suspicious."

"What kind of delivery was it?" Will asked, trying to sound casual.

"Flowers. Hey, how come I didn't get an invitation to your dinner party?"

"You know about that?" said Will.

"Of course I know about that," said Jack. "I'm hurt, Will. I thought we were friends."

"Maybe I didn't want my boss at my farcical dinner party," said Will. "Don't worry, there'll be others."

He hung up. Had Hannibal known, somehow, just from seeing Martin? Did it take one to know one, as Freddie Lounds had implied? But then why hadn't Martin taken Hannibal from his home, like he had with all the others? And where was Hannibal now? He'd sent Will to Martin, and then he'd just...disappeared.

But Hannibal could take care of himself. He was the Chesapeake goddamn Ripper.

That was what Will told himself.

Martin's neighborhood turned out to be an upscale suburb. Not quite as imposing as Hannibal's neighborhood, with its Greek pillars and the occasional helipad, but large homes and manicured lawns. It was the kind of neighborhood that Will and his father used to work in. It didn't look like the kind of neighborhood where a young man who worked part-time at a florist lived. Maybe he lived with his parents?

Will knocked on the door to a tidy, well-kept house with green shutters. A shrill terrier yapping set up, undaunted by a human shushing.

A man around Hannibal's age, maybe a few years younger, answered the door, Yorkshire terrier cradled in the crook of his arm. He blinked owlishly at Will through his glasses. His eyes were startlingly blue against his dark skin. He was actually wearing a sweater vest. "Yes? May I help you?"

"I'm looking for Martin Liefield," said Will.

A shadow crossed the man's face. The corners of his mouth pulled down. "I'm afraid he doesn't live here anymore."

Will inserted his foot in the doorframe. "But he used to?" When the man wouldn't meet his eyes, Will felt some chime of intuition begin ringing. "You used to live together," he said. "You were…" Boyfriends? Lovers? "A couple."

The man sighed. "Yes, but we've parted ways. We haven't even spoken in...gosh, I guess it must be six months now." He adjusted his glasses on his face. "What's going on? Is Marty in trouble?"

"I think I'd better come in," said Will, and he made use of his FBI badge again.

\-----

"We were together for...almost four years," said the man, whose name turned out to be Bill Watford. He was a physics professor at Johns Hopkins. "He used to work at a coffeeshop near the university. I thought he was cute, but I didn't think I had any chance, him a hip young barista and me a fusty old academic. I went in there regularly enough that he recognized me and learned my usual coffee order, and one day he wrote his phone number on my cup. Shocked the hell out of me.

"It turned out we actually had a lot in common. He loved classical music--had gone to school for it, as a matter of fact--and so did I. And we liked the same kinds of movies, and Indian food, and we agreed on a lot of political things. We had good conversations. We'd been dating for maybe a year when he told me that his landlord was raising the rent and that he was thinking of moving, and I said why don't you move in with me?

"And it was lovely. He loved Chachi," that was the dog, now in Bill's lap, "and Chachi loved him. He helped me buy a new computer, and he surprised me with an anniversary dinner, and I took him to San Francisco. It was really wonderful." Bill fell silent then, stroking his hand over Chachi's head and back. The dog seemed nearly asleep.

"But?" Will prompted.

"I noticed, after we started living together, that he was...cruel, sometimes. Not to me," Bill added hastily, "never to me. But just...the things he'd say, sometimes, indicated this amazing lack of empathy. It scared me sometimes. Yes, that's what it was," he said, almost to himself. "He scared me."

"What were some of the things he did that scared you?" Will asked, as gentle as he knew how to be.

"During the ebola scare, for instance, he had a coworker who was very much afraid," Bill explained. "So he mailed an envelope of white powder to her house. Just flour, but it scared her. He said it was to show her the folly of her fears. It was things like that, cruel jokes that were supposed to teach people a lesson. I tried to talk to him about it, but he'd laugh it off and call me soft in my old age."

"What was your last argument about?" Will asked. "When you broke it off."

Bill heaved a long sigh. "I used to keep about a thousand dollars in cash hidden in my bedroom closet. In case of emergencies. I should have kept it in a safe, but I was afraid of forgetting the combination or losing the key, and anyway it was in an envelope in the bottom of a box of memorabilia, nothing anyone really had any reason to be going through.

"Well, one day, I was going through that box for some reason and I discovered the money was missing. So of course I went through the whole closet, the whole bedroom, just tearing the place apart. Martin came home in the middle of it and asked what was going on, and I explained, and he joined in the search, even though I knew very well that it hadn't gotten up and walked itself out to the hall closet or the kitchen.

"I never found it, and I had to confront the ugly reality that it had been stolen. I knew that the housekeeper, Esperanza, had been struggling financially and that her husband needed some kind of surgery, and I could well imagine the temptation, had she come across the money. But she'd been working for me for almost ten years--I thought of her as part of the family, and I couldn't believe she'd do such a thing. But I fired her, and the gardener for good measure, and I started asking a different handyman to come over and fix things around the house. And when I replaced the money, I put it in a locked drawer in my home office."

"But it disappeared again," said Will.

"It took a while," said Bill. "I checked it often at first, maybe once a week. Then after a few months I forgot about it."

"When did you begin to suspect Martin?"

"Martin had gone to work for the florist by then. He'd said it was because the manager at the coffeeshop hated him, and that was why he'd quit. I'd been avoiding going to that coffeeshop out of respect for him, but one day I happened to be passing by and desperately needed coffee. And while I was in there, I overheard one of the employees saying to the other about how nice it was that that asshole Martin wasn't around anymore, stealing from the tip jar.

"I went home and checked the drawer, and the money was gone. I checked everywhere, and, like last time, Martin helped. He told me then that he'd seen the new housekeeper snooping through drawers, and it wasn't as if I kept the key in a secure location." Bill stopped and looked at Will.

Will kept his expression neutral. "You saw a different Martin, then."

"It wasn't that he was different," said Bill. "He'd always been like this, and I was only now seeing what he was." His face twisted, his teeth showing white against his bottom lip. "He held me when I cried, after firing Esperanza. He offered to replace the money, but I said no, no...I had the money, I could replace it. And the whole time, even as he was looking for the money alongside me, he'd taken it. And here he was, throwing the new housekeeper under the bus, and I couldn't even tell if he was lying."

"What did he do, when you confronted him?"

"He was defensive, of course," said Bill. "But when he stopped defending himself and lashed out at me--I didn't realize he could hurt me so badly." Bill took a deep breath and let it out shaking.

"He said he only ever stayed with you because of the money," said Will.

"Among other things, yes."

"Did you believe him?"

Bill stopped stroking Chachi and left his large hand cupped over the tiny dog's back. His eyes unfocused. Will waited. He knew well how to wait and be patient, until men talked. "I don't want to believe it," Bill said at last. "But I fear it's true."

"Truth isn't something objective that we can reach out and grasp," Will said. "But for what it's worth, I do believe that he loves you, otherwise he wouldn't be doing what he's doing now."

"Why? What's he doing now?"

"Framing you for serial murder," said Will. "Do you own another property, Mr. Watford? A cabin, or a vacation home?"


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas!

There was no excuse not to call the police.

Will knew that, but his phone remained in his pocket as he raced along the interstate. There was no doubt in his mind, now, that Martin Liefield was The Bleeder. If he called Jack, Jack would call local law enforcement, and they would reach Watford's cabin before Will was even close. And Will was beginning to suspect that Martin and Hannibal were together.

_I'm with Martin._

But there was time. Martin had always held his victims for a day or more, killing them slowly. And Hannibal was Hannibal. He was strong and clever. And he wanted Will to come find him.

_Don't forget the flowers._

Will's fingers tightened on the steering wheel until it creaked.

Traffic flowed, then crawled, then came nearly to a standstill. Will looked out his window at the evergreens, their branches waving back and forth in the wind. He lowered the car window once, just for a minute, just to feel the cold air stinging his skin, and then rolled it up again. Finally, the cars crept past three vehicles pushed over to the side of the road. The asphalt was littered with broken glass. Will caught a glimpse of an SUV all crumpled up in the back. But traffic was picking up again, now that it was past the bottleneck. He hadn't seen any blood.

Will realized that he hadn't eaten lunch. He didn't feel hungry. Hannibal's voice in his head tsked. Will curled his hand into a fist on his thigh and relaxed it again.

\-----

Will didn't have any idea of how visible his car would be from the house, so he parked it a good half mile away and made the rest of the trip on foot. The snow had resumed falling again, fat flakes that clung to Will's clothes but melted upon contact with his skin. Will wondered how far along Martin was in torturing Hannibal. Hannibal would be in pain by now, fatigued, thirsty from dehydration. But eventually he'd fall unconscious and bleed out. He'd know he was dying, but he wouldn't be conscious as the last of the light slipped away. That was more than Hannibal had ever given to any of his victims.

The cabin was shielded by a thick cluster of pine trees. Will wasn't sure he'd have known it was there if he hadn't been looking for it. No light issued from any of the windows. Will's breath stuck in his throat; it hadn't occurred to him that he might be wrong. Maybe they weren't here after all.

He got closer--close enough to see Hannibal's Bentley parked outside. Will let out his breath and took another one too fast, suddenly dizzy. He paused, bent over with his hands on his knees, to catch his breath before circling around to approach the cabin from the back. The windows had all their blinds drawn, and Will could only make guesses as to what rooms he was looking at. It was possible the cabin had a basement, and that Martin had taken Hannibal down there. Why did killers always like to do their work in the basement? Privacy, Will supposed, but you also only had one entrance or exit, and no way to tell if anyone was approaching from outside. Maybe he would question Hannibal about the logic, later.

Will leaned against the wall just around from the front door and considered his options.

He didn't have his gun. He'd left it at Hannibal's house last night and hadn't picked it up for what he'd thought was going to be a short jaunt to Hearts & Cranes. He didn't know if Martin had a gun.

He should call the police. Hannibal's car was here. If Hannibal wasn't here he was close by, probably with Martin. Will pulled out his phone. Reception here was nearly nonexistent, but he might be able to get ahold of 911--

The front door opened.

Will dove to the ground and flattened himself against it, even as he scanned for the closest cover. That tree, maybe? Or he might be able to crawl underneath the porch. But the man that came out of the front door didn't even look around. Will remained pressed to the ground and watched as Martin--it had to be Martin--got into the Bentley and drove away. Will watched the car hum out of sight and counted to 100 before getting up.

The door was locked. Will kicked twice to get it open. Once inside, he paced from room to room before finding a door that led to, yes, a basement. Will switched on the light before descending the stairs.

Exposed wooden beams criss-crossed overhead. A green-felted pool table had been pushed against the concrete wall, and an opened pallet of water sat atop it. The floor itself was rough concrete. And in the middle of the room: Hannibal, bound to a chair. His chin was sunk against his chest, and he was covered in blood. Literally: blood oozed and dripped and wept from wounds of various sizes on his forehead, his arms, his chest, his legs. His clothes were sodden and torn, and a small puddle had formed underneath the chair. The room reeked of salt and copper.

Hannibal hadn't looked up as Will entered. Will wasn't sure he was conscious. He didn't bother to announce himself now, just went up and checked Hannibal's pulse. Hannibal jerked at the contact and opened his eyes. His face was a mask of blood, but Will could see the way Hannibal's face opened up when he realized it was Will.

"Will," Hannibal breathed. "You came."

Will felt Hannibal's pulse. It was strong, but a little too fast. "How do you feel?"

"Thirsty. Very dehydrated. I think I've lost two pints of blood."

Will could believe it. "Do you know where he went?"

"No. He may have gone to dispose of the car."

Hannibal had been bound using zip ties: one around his wrists and one around each arm, fastened to the back of the chair; and one around each calf and ankle, fastened to the legs. Martin was thorough, if nothing else. Will scanned the room. No toolbox or anything that Will could see.

"Try the kitchen," Hannibal suggested. "There's at least the knife he's been using on me."

It was a good idea, even if Will hesitated at the bottom of the stairs, loathe to let Hannibal out of his sight. He took the stairs two at a time and went straight to the kitchen, where Martin was waiting.

He was skinnier than Will had expected, but taller. Long arms and legs. Long reach. He had a gun in one hand. Will's insides sank.

"What the fuck are _you_ doing here?" Martin asked.

Martin recognized him; of course he did. He knew very well what Hannibal's live-in boyfriend looked like.

Will raised his hands. "I've called the police."

"Don't fuckin' lie," said Martin. "You _are_ the police. Why didn't you bring the whole fuckin' crew, huh? Do they not know you're a homo?" Martin gestured with the gun toward the basement stairs. "Did you come to save your boyfriend? Don't you know what he is?"

Will froze. "What do you mean?"

"Didn't you ever look in the basement?" Martin asked.

Will stared. "He showed you the basement?"

"Yeah." Martin looked at Will for a moment longer, and then he laughed. It boomed. "Oh, this is great."

\-----

Will went back down to the cellar, Martin just a few steps behind him. This time Will had a knife. It was the knife Martin had used on Hannibal. The irony of cutting into Hannibal with a chef's knife was not lost on Will. Martin said he'd done that on purpose, that he'd used his switchblade on the others.

Hannibal looked more or less the same as he had ten minutes ago. The basement still smelled like blood, stronger now that Will had left and come back.

"Martin says you let him kidnap you," said Will.

"It was expedient," said Hannibal.

"Martin says you showed him the basement," said Will.

"I had to get him to trust me," said Hannibal. He cocked his head and gave Will a few long, slow blinks. Will thought this was taking longer than it normally would have. Blood loss. "Are you jealous?"

Fury flared up in Will, hot and metallic-tasting, because the answer was _yes_. His hand tightened around the handle of the knife.

Martin hooted with laughter again. He waved with the hand that was holding the gun. "Go on," he said. "Cut him. You'll feel better. Not too deep. He should last another half a day, maybe."

Will could believe that. He thought back to shooting Eldon Stammets and Garrett Jacob Hobbs. _Doing bad things to bad people makes us feel good_. He would feel good about this now. He would feel bad about it later. Hannibal had wished for more of the former and less of the latter.

Hannibal was still regarding Will with warm, dark eyes. "Will," he said, very gently.

"Come on," said Martin. "I'm getting bored." He waved the gun again.

Will raised the knife. He spun and shoved it into Martin's arm, the one that was holding the gun. Martin yelled. Warm blood flowed over Will's hand. He'd never get the smell out of the back of his throat. The gun went off, and now Will couldn't hear anything but a ringing in his ears. But he could still move, so he pulled the knife out and tried again. This time he missed.

Martin was still holding the gun, and his mouth was moving, probably shouting. Will needed to get the gun away from him. He darted in, slashing, and Martin jerked back. Martin's arm wasn't working right, but he could still raise the gun. He didn't point it at Will. He pointed it at Hannibal.

Will leapt. He heard, in a very distant, muffled way, the gun go off. He hit the ground, Martin underneath him. He brought the knife down and felt it push through flesh. Blood pulsed everywhere, on Will's hands and his clothes. Will pulled the knife out and stabbed it in again, and then again. It was hard. He could have done with something better than this knife.

\-----

The knife wasn't ideal for cutting through Hannibal's bonds either, but Will didn't want to climb the stairs just to find scissors, and he wasn't sure he'd come back down if he did. So he made do, wiggling the point in between the nylon and Hannibal's flesh and making little sawing motions. At first he was afraid of hurting Hannibal, but then he remembered that he didn't have to be gentle.

Hannibal gave a sigh as the nylon snapped. He bent forward and rolled his shoulders, flexed his hands. Hannibal's fingers had been cool to Will's touch, like stone. They would prickle now, inside and out, as blood flowed once again through restricted veins and arteries. It would hurt. Will knelt and freed Hannibal's legs.

Will didn't think Hannibal would make the half-mile walk to Will's car, but it turned out he didn't have to: the Bentley was outside after all. Martin must have driven away and then, for some reason, come back without abandoning the car. They would never know why, because Martin was dead. Will bundled Hannibal into the passenger's seat and, despite Hannibal's protestations, drove Hannibal to the hospital. It was only at the hospital that he finally called Jack.

\-----

"They've placed you on administrative leave," Hannibal guessed, when Will came back into the room.

Will dropped back into his chair and grunted an affirmative. The hospital had offered him a set of spare scrubs, which Will had gratefully accepted, even if it'd caused another patient to mistake him for a nurse. He'd had enough of sitting around in blood-soaked clothes. But he hadn't been able to wash properly yet, and there was still blood in his nail beds and probably in his hair. He'd stopped being able to smell it.

It was a little strange, seeing Hannibal in a hospital gown, in a hospital bed, with an IV taped to his arm. Even naked, in his own bed at home, he didn't look as vulnerable as he did now. He had bandages on his face and on his arms. Some of the wider cuts had required sutures.

"It was self-defense," said Hannibal. "And defense of me," he added.

Will rubbed one hand over his face and let it drop onto the arm of the chair with a clang. He didn't answer. Hannibal didn't say anything either, for a long time.

"I've asked them to discharge me," Hannibal said, at last. "It's just anemia and dehydration. No need to keep me overnight. But they were uncomfortable with discharging me if I had to drive myself home."

"I'll take you home," said Will. He didn't look at Hannibal, though he was quite certain Hannibal was looking at him. "There's more stuff I need to get from your house, anyway."

Hannibal took a breath and let it out through his nose. "Will, I--"

"Don't--" Will cut himself off, one hand in a fist atop his thigh. He relaxed it with great effort. "I don't want to talk about this here," he said in a low voice.

"Then we'll talk about it tonight," said Hannibal. "After you take me home."

Will looked out the window. He thought about his dogs.

\-----

Buffy greeted them at the door, whining and yelping, dancing around and between their legs as they made their way inside. "She probably needs to go out," Hannibal said.

Will left the front door open, but Buffy followed them down the hall and to the stairs. Hannibal claimed to be feeling better, but he still leaned on Will. Will didn't know if it was genuine or if Hannibal just wanted to be close, but he didn't move away. Hannibal did seem to have some trouble with the stairs. Buffy stayed at the bottom and watched them go, her little nose quivering. Will deposited Hannibal in bed and went back downstairs to close the front door and let Buffy into the side yard. He stood in the grass, by the door, and scooped Eukanuba into her bowl. Alana had agreed to look after the dogs in Wolf Trap. Will wondered if he shouldn't just go and get them and bring them back to Hannibal's house. But if he drove away now, he might not come back. Then he wondered why he thought he needed to come back.

He gathered Buffy inside and went back upstairs. Hannibal was sitting on the edge of the bed, watching the entryway.

"I thought you might not return," Hannibal said.

"I thought about it." Will went and stood in front of him. Hannibal raised his arms and put his hands on Will's hips. "What're you doing?"

"Touching you."

Will met Hannibal's gaze. It held for only a moment, but that was long enough for Will to feel scraped out and hollow. He squeezed his eyes shut and put his hand out to grab hold of something. It came down in Hannibal's hair. "I didn't sleep well without you last night."

"Nor I."

"What did you do to me?" Will's voice trembled. "Did you--hypnotize me or something?"

A baffled silence preceded Hannibal's words. "That never occurred to me."

Will wheezed out a little laugh, his lips twitching. He opened his eyes again. He didn't know whose sick, exposed feeling this was. Hannibal was usually so calm and reserved; it made Will feel calm and reserved too. But Hannibal had opened himself to Will. "Why did you let Martin take you?"

Hannibal smoothed his thumb over the waistband of Will's scrubs. "Why didn't you let Martin kill me?"

Will pressed his lips together. "You answer my question first."

Hannibal's eyelids dipped. His adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed.

Will finally answered for him: "You wanted to see what would happen. Wind me up and watch me go. What I'd do, if you let yourself get kidnapped and tortured. Jesus. What if I," he tightened his hand in Hannibal's hair, hard enough now that it had to hurt, and shook him a little bit. "What if I hadn't come back? What if I'd just let you die?"

"But you didn't." Hannibal was smiling now, even as Will jostled his head back and forth. "You came, and you killed him." He sounded elated.

Will let go of Hannibal's hair. He could see himself putting his hand around Hannibal's neck instead, pressing his thumb into the hyoid bone. He wanted to do it, very badly. Hannibal would probably let him. He wouldn't want Will to feel bad about it, afterward. He wanted Will to feel powerful.

"Shit," Will said, and he could feel that rough heat rising behind his eyes. "Shit."

Hannibal leaned forward and pressed his face into Will's belly. "Come to bed," he said. "I think you should hurt me. I think it would be therapeutic for you."

Will let out a shrill bark of a laugh. "Is that what this is now? Therapy?"

"Do you disagree?"

Will let Hannibal pull him down onto the bed and undress him.

Hannibal hadn't had to come back from the hospital in scrubs. He'd had a bag in the trunk of his Bentley, packed with three days worth of clothes, toiletries, a razor, and a stack of crisp new bills that must have totaled at least a thousand dollars. Will hadn't asked why it'd been there or whether it was always there. The clothes were of a slightly different type than Hannibal usually wore: still expensive, designer, but there'd been a polo shirt and even a pair of jeans. That was what he'd worn back from the hospital. Underneath, Hannibal was covered in long strips of bandages, and here and there the black pucker of sutures.

"I used to hear my thoughts inside my skull with my own voice," Will said. "The same tone, timbre, and accent. Now my inner voice sounds like you. I thought that was a good thing. Because you were my paddle. Now I'm not so sure."

"Friendship can sometimes involve a breach of individual separateness," Hannibal said. He lay back against the pillows so that Will could crouch over him on all fours, like a wild animal.

Will gave a hoarse, strangled little laugh. "We're not friends. The light from friendship won't reach us for a million years. That's how far from friendship we are."

Hannibal's breath hitched. Will dipped his head and kissed Hannibal on the mouth. Hannibal seemed to melt into the bed. Will stroked his thumb over one of the bandages on Hannibal's ribs and, before he could think too much about what he was about to do, pressed down hard. Hannibal's next breath sucked in between his teeth. Will picked at the medical tape until the bandage came off to reveal a pale line, darkening with sluggish beads of blood. By tomorrow it would be scabbed over. Will scraped his thumbnail across it, smearing the blood across Hannibal's skin. The coppery, salty smell rose around them.

"How many people have you killed?" Will wondered. "We know about twelve of the Ripper's victims. Fifteen, if you count the last three."

"Many more than that. I don't always display them."

"You didn't always display them," Will corrected.

A brief pause, before Hannibal said, "Yes."

"But you ate them."

"Yes."

"And you fed them to others."

"Yes."

"Including me."

"Yes."

Will picked at the edge of another bandage, this one on Hannibal's pectoral muscle, just over his nipple. "Why?"

Hannibal moved, but he left his arms flat on the bed, palms turned upward. "I suspect you could tell me."

"It just amused you," Will said. "You thought it was funny. What about Cassie Boyle? She was yours too, wasn't she?"

"Yes," Hannibal said. "I thought I could help you see the Shrike's face."

"And you did." Will flattened his hand over the bandage. He could feel Hannibal's heartbeat under his palm. "You showed me a negative, so that I could see the positive. It was," his voice broke, "incredible."

Hannibal took in a deep breath and let it out through his nose. His chest rose and fell with it, and so did Will's hand. "I could say the same of you. I watched you in your classroom, when you spoke about that scene, and about the Ripper. No one has ever understood me so well."

Will looked up at Hannibal. This time he didn't flinch at the eye contact. Hannibal didn't look away either.

"I can't forgive you, you know," Will said conversationally. "Not for the murders, which I had to look at and think they were beautiful, and not for letting yourself get kidnapped and tortured." He stroked the edges of the bandage over Hannibal's chest. "But I can't let them have you, either, because you're _mine_." He mashed his thumb into the center of the bandage and dug it back and forth. Hannibal winced. "And I hate myself. I hate myself for it."

"Oh, Will," Hannibal said, and he _sounded sad_ , the fucking bastard. Will simultaneously wanted to punch him in the face and curl up on Hannibal's chest and let Hannibal hold him. It was probable that he was going to feel like this for the rest of his life. The very prospect was exhausting.

Will bowed his head and took the pressure off of Hannibal's wound. He smoothed his hand over the bandage. Hannibal's breathing was ragged. Will had no doubt that blood had crept into the bottom layer of the gauze. Tomorrow, they would pick it up and find a brown crust on the white cotton fibers. "No more," Will said. "No more violence and murder and blood. We're shutting it down."

Hannibal shifted beneath Will. There was a dry hitch in his breath when he spoke. "We?"

"Relationships are about compromise," said Will. "I think I heard that somewhere. This is the compromise."

"Then you'll stay?" Hannibal sounded breathless.

Will swallowed. "Yes. I'll stay."

Hannibal lunged up to cover Will's mouth with his own. His hands scrabbled at Will's back, pulling him down and clutching him tight. Will let himself be sucked in.

Will didn't think that either of them would be able to get hard--Hannibal had to be in pain, in addition to being short a significant amount of blood, and Will was still angry and confused. He thought they'd just kiss for a while, until Hannibal fell asleep, and Will would be able to put his clothes back on and go for a walk. But maybe it was just because he was in bed with Hannibal, a state of being that his body had come to associate with safety and pleasure, but Will _did_ start to get hard. He jerked away from Hannibal when he realized it, grimacing.

"Shh, shh," Hannibal said, like he was gentling a dog. "Come here. Let me make you feel good." He put his hand on Will's thickening cock, worked it a bit, slid his hand down to cradle Will's balls. "What would make you feel good? Do you want to hurt me some more?"

"No," Will rasped.

"Hmmm. I don't believe you." Hannibal fondled Will some more. Will tried to control his breathing, but he couldn't control his hips. "You could fuck my mouth. Choke me. Or you could fuck me properly," Hannibal added. "With your fingers or your cock, or something else entirely. You did ask the other day if you could do that to me sometime."

Will looked down Hannibal's body. Hannibal wasn't hard at all.

"Don't mistake a lack of erection for lack of interest," said Hannibal. "I'm very interested."

Will seized Hannibal's wrist in his hand. Hannibal stopped moving. Will was still stuck on _something else entirely_. He didn't know what Hannibal had been suggesting. His heart was beating too fast.

Their eyes met. Neither of them broke the stare.

Will opened his mouth. What came out was, "I want to tie you down."

\-----

Will's room--what once had been Will's room--still bore the marks of his sudden departure: the haphazard dresser drawers; the bare hangers in the closet; the absence of Will's belongings on the desk. Will had dragged the duvet onto the floor to make space for Hannibal, whom he'd tied to the bed, face up, with a number of scarves. He'd tied a scarf around Hannibal's eyes too.

Hannibal had been quiescent in the hospital and still subdued upon their initial return home. Now that he was restrained, with Will's full attention upon him, he made tiny, restless movements against the sheets. Muscles twitched and vibrated beneath his skin. His presence filled the whole room.

"Is this okay?" Will murmured. "You _were_ just tied up earlier today."

"You worry too much," Hannibal said. He tilted his face toward Will's voice and smiled. "You need to learn to relax."

Will snorted and sat back to admire his work. He had to admit, there was something good about seeing Hannibal like this: it wasn't as if Hannibal couldn't free himself from a few loosely tied scarves, but he didn't try. He submitted because something in him craved to submit to Will. It made Will feel...powerful.

"If I told you to stay," Will said, tracing one finger down Hannibal's chest, "and I got up and left, what would you do? Would you stay?"

Hannibal shifted on the bed. "I would."

"For how long?"

Hannibal's throat worked as he swallowed. "Until I was certain you were not coming back. Then I'd look for you."

Will didn't have to ask what would happen then. Blood and violence; everything since Hannibal had come into Will's life had been blood and violence. He didn't know why he hadn't seen it before now. And now the only way to make it stop was to stay, and hope that Hannibal knew how to keep his promises.

"Why do you want me to hurt you?" Will wondered.

"Because you want to hurt me," Hannibal replied.

"I don't," Will said, and as the words came out of his mouth he realized it was true. "I really don't."

Hannibal still wasn't hard, but Will cupped him in his hand, drew back the foreskin to expose the glans, and blew warm breath over it. That made Hannibal shiver, so Will did it again. He fondled Hannibal's balls. And then he got the pump-bottle of lube that he'd brought from the master bedroom. Hannibal gave no sign that he had any awareness of what Will was doing, but Will thought he could probably smell it.

This was not the best position for it; it would have been better to untie Hannibal's legs, so that he could bring his knees up, or, better yet, have Hannibal lie down on his stomach. But Will didn't want Hannibal to move, so he just got his fingers down and back there, probing until he found the little pucker of Hannibal's opening. He wiggled his finger, spreading the lube around, before attempting to push in.

It was harder than he'd expected. But Hannibal knew what he was trying to do, so he bore down, and the way opened up so that Will could get his finger in to the first knuckle. He pulled out--faster than Hannibal would have liked, judging from the exhale that rushed out of him-- applied another pump of lube, and went back in. Now that he knew where and how he was aiming, he was able to get in up to the second knuckle. He wriggled and rotated his finger, trying to find that spot that had lit his spine on fire, when Hannibal had done it.

He had to get his finger all the way in before he brushed against it. It wasn't hard to find, after all; he only had to follow the curve of Hannibal's body. Again, this position was not the best, but it was manageable. Will brushed his finger back and forth against it, keeping an eye on Hannibal's cock. It still wasn't hard. Will bent down and licked it. Hannibal made a noise.

"Am I hurting you?" Will asked.

Hannibal shook his head.

Will arranged himself so that he was lying on his front between Hannibal's knees, propped up on his elbows. His feet hung off the edge of the bed. Now he didn't have to bend down so far to take Hannibal's soft cock into his mouth. He was careful of his teeth. He hollowed his cheeks and sucked, laved Hannibal's cock with his tongue, let it fall out of his mouth so that he could mouth Hannibal's balls instead. He left his finger inside Hannibal's ass as he did this.

"If the goal is to give me an erection," Hannibal said in a high, trembling voice, "I don't know that that's going to be achieved. It's not a reflection of your--ability."

Will let Hannibal's testicle slip from his mouth. Hannibal's genitals were slick and shiny with spit. The air would start to feel cold on them soon. "There's no goal." He retrieved his finger and added more lube. This time, he wanted to get two fingers in there.

He lost track of time after that. Hannibal never got hard, but he did start to leak. The fluid was bitter and salty. Will had to swallow sometimes. He kept adding lube, so that his fingers going in and out of Hannibal made wet, obscene sounds. Hannibal, too, started making more noise: little grunts at first that sounded as if they'd been punched out of him, and then louder moans.

"Will," Hannibal groaned. "Will, Will."

"What is it?" Will looked up. "Am I hurting you?"

"Yes," Hannibal said. "Yes, you're hurting me."

"You don't sound like you're in pain," Will observed.

Hannibal took a deep, shaking breath. "Does it feel good?"

"Yeah," Will said. "Yeah, it feels good."

"I'm so glad." Hannibal tossed his head back on the pillows, baring his throat to the ceiling. The fluid seeping from his cock thickened and turned white. Will had no idea this could happen, and he watched in fascination. He withdrew his fingers, and Hannibal made a brief, unhappy sound.

Will went to the bathroom and washed his hands quickly, and then he came back and untied Hannibal, dropping the scarves one by one on the floor. Hannibal immediately turned and gathered Will into his arms, winding his arms and legs around him. Will had to push Hannibal quite a lot before he could gain enough freedom of movement to drag the duvet up and over them. Hannibal nuzzled Will's shoulder and mumbled something.

"What?"

Hannibal just kept mumbling. Will had to strain himself to hear: "I wanted you to see me."

Will swallowed. Wind him up and watch him go; this was apparently how he went. "I do," he said. "I see you."


	13. Epilogue

"You caught all these fish _yourself?"_

 _No_ , Will wanted to answer. _Someone else caught them; I just wanted to take all the credit._ "Yes," he said.

"Even the salmon?" Gerry looked impressed. 

"Even the salmon," Will confirmed.

"I've never been to a dinner party with dogs," Alana said, grinning. She kept looking under the table at them. Will thought Hannibal had probably seated Alana next to him out of mercy. It helped to have the dogs there, too: Winston, his head on his paws, at Will's end of the table; Buffy at Hannibal's end; Ethel and Lucy and Mal underneath the living wall. The other dogs had been shut out of the dining room as being too rambunctious to comport themselves with guests.

"They're allowed in the dining room normally," said Will. "Well, some of them. Not Buster."

"That's the little Jack Russell Terrier, right?" said Gerry. "Every single one I've ever met is a total scamp. My aunt had them."

"How many did your aunt have?" Alana asked.

"Oh my God, probably at least a dozen over the years. Not all at once, of course." Gerry gave a high little laugh. "But she always had at least two."

The other end of the table erupted in a small outburst. Mrs. Komeda looked indignant. Hannibal looked smug. "Oh God," Will said.

Mrs. Komeda glared down the table at Will. "Hannibal tells me you're _leaving Baltimore."_

"Not right away," Will said.

"I was telling Mrs. Komeda about the house in southern Maryland," Hannibal said. He had the overly self-satisfied expression of a cat that's just caught a bird.

"It's too far away," said Will.

"Sixteen acres," Hannibal told Mrs. Komeda. "The house itself is a renovated tobacco barn."

"Too far away," Will persisted. "It's a ninety minute commute to Baltimore. _If_ the traffic's good."

"You can't seriously want to live in southern Maryland," said Robert.

"Will dislikes the city," said Hannibal. "And there certainly isn't enough space for the dogs here. The commute doesn't bother me; it's not as if I have to make it every day. And we'll be closer to D.C."

"I'm not always going to have seven dogs," Will said.

"True," Hannibal said. "You might have eight." That was what he'd said when Will had protested the necessity of _sixteen acres_. Will didn't want to repeat the argument in front of guests, so he ground his teeth.

"Well, we'll miss your dinner parties," Mrs. Komeda said with a hangdog expression. She seemed to have moved past the anger stage straight into sadness. "And just when you'd started giving them again!"

"We're not moving to the _moon,"_ Will pointed out. "We'll still have dinner parties in southern Maryland."

"Indeed," said Hannibal. "Expect invitations to a housewarming."

\-----

"I can't believe you talked me into having a housewarming party," Will said. "This doesn't mean we're getting the house, by the way."

"I didn't talk you into anything," Hannibal said. "I've made suggestions; I've whispered through the chrysalis. But what emerges has always followed its own nature."

Will wasn't sure that was true, but he also wasn't sure that it _wasn't_ true, so he kept his mouth shut and went to see the house in person.

"You'll hate it," he insisted as the city sank out of sight behind them and countryside rolled up outside the Bentley's windows. Right now it was barren: naked, spindly trees and colorless grass only recently released from the snow. In the spring it would boil up with green, and in the summer it would burst with cornfields and vines. In the autumn, the leaves would spin to gold and scarlet. Hannibal's commute to and from Baltimore would, at least, be beautiful. "You'll spend half the week in the car."

"I'll thank you to allow me to decide what I'll bear," Hannibal said. "The commute is long, yes, but I can arrange my schedule so that I see patients only four days of the week, perhaps three. Besides, I thought you had a vested interest in making sure my time is occupied," Hannibal added.

That was true enough; if Hannibal was stuck in a car crawling past the D.C. suburbs, he probably wasn't out murdering people. And the house, having been a barn, had no basement.

"There's a wonderful farmers market in Charlotte Hall," Hannibal continued. "There's wine, and excellent produce, and fresh milk. There will certainly be plenty of fishing for you. I look forward to learning how to cook crab in every manner possible. And perhaps Abigail could visit us here," he added, though that last part sounded a little hesitant.

Will blinked out the window. "She...might like that," he said to his reflection.

The house itself was over three thousand square feet. Four bedrooms, and, for some reason, five bathrooms, and a number of other rooms of indeterminate purpose. The master bedroom had a hot tub. The steps leading up to it were carpeted. "This is impractical," Will said. "You'll drip water all over it, and the carpet'll mildew."

"We can have the carpet removed, if you like." Hannibal was inspecting the walk-in closet, which was large enough to put another bed inside.

Hannibal declared the kitchen "adequate," though he frowned at the black-and-white tile on the floor. "You can gut it however you like," Will told him. "I won't even complain. Have at it."

"Perhaps if we knocked down this wall," Hannibal said.

"Sure," Will said. "The other room only has a pool table in it."

They went and looked at the garage, which was a long enough walk from the house that it would be annoying to make in the rain or snow. It had more than enough room for their cars and a riding mower, which they would need for the acreage. And, in the very back, four stalls, which explained the fenced-in pasture on part of the property. 

Hannibal regarded the stalls. "Perhaps I'll keep horses again."

"Again?" said Will.

"I had a horse, when I was a boy," said Hannibal. "His name was Caesar. He was very fond of apples."

"Of course," said Will. Maybe horses would give Hannibal something to do. Will imagined Hannibal in riding breeches.

Dry grass crunched under their feet as they traipsed out to the property line. It was a long walk. Sixteen acres. Jesus. The one and a half acres Will had in Wolf Trap had felt luxurious. It'd been easy for him to walk outside and pretend he was the only one left in the world; no one to harm him, and no one for him to harm. He'd let it grow wild, mostly. He wasn't sure he'd be able to get away with that here.

"This is going to be hell to manage," Will said. At least it was fenced in.

"We can hire people to manage it," Hannibal said vaguely. He was looking up at the trees that had been planted along the property line, following the fence. Dark branches reached up against the cloudy sky.

"What?" Will asked.

"Cherry trees," Hannibal replied. "They'll bloom in a couple of months. This place will look like a field of clouds."

Will looked at the trees and tried to imagine it. He went to Washington D.C. a few times a year, had heard about the famous cherry trees. But he'd never seen them blooming; it'd always been the wrong time of year, or he'd been too busy with work.

"They bloom at the very beginning of spring, when it's just beginning to grow warmer," said Hannibal. "In Japan they have viewing parties, picnicking with sake under the trees and enjoying their beauty. But they bloom very briefly: for one week, perhaps two. They're a symbol of the ephemeral nature of life. Sudden beauty, blossoming at the tapering edge of winter, and then fading away again."

Will looked back up at the trees. He had a sudden vivid image of a foam of pale blossoms, petals showering down in the breeze. They'd show up as light spots against Clay's dark fur. "A couple months, you said?"

Hannibal nodded.

"Hell," said Will. "Maybe we can get moved in by then."

\-----

"Hm." Jack looked down at the change of address form, then back up at Will. "Are congratulations in order?"

Will didn't know what to do with his hands, so he kept them at his sides. "Uh."

Jack tapped the corner of the form against his desk. He wasn't smiling. "I guess this means we'll have to find you a new therapist."

"I have a new therapist," Will said. "Dr. Du Maurier. Hannibal's been taking care of it."

"I'm glad to hear it." Jack leaned back in his chair. "I don't need to worry about anything untoward happening on my watch, do I?"

"Past or future?" Will asked.

"Both."

"No," said Will. "Nothing, uh, untoward."

"Good." Jack laced his fingers together over his stomach. "Because I'd hate to have to be concerned. I don't want to be kept up nights worrying."

"You need your beauty sleep," said Will.

Jack nodded. "I hope I'm invited to the housewarming," he went on.

"What?" said Will.

"Me _and_ Bella," Jack corrected. "I mean, technically I introduced you. I hope this gives me special privileges."

"What kind of privileges?" Will asked, no longer certain where this conversation was going. He supposed he couldn't be hallucinating it.

"First dibs at Dr. Lecter's table," said Jack. "Or should I be calling him Hannibal now?"

\-----

"It sounds as if you've made a choice," said Dr. Du Maurier.

"Yeah," Will said.

He looked across at her and wondered how much she knew. She knew _something_ ; probably more than Will himself had, when he'd started seeing her. But not all of it. If she'd known all of it, she wouldn't still be here. But she was smart. Smart enough to know that she didn't want to know.

"I don't justify his actions," said Will. "And I didn't choose these emotions. Neither did he. But we choose how our emotions manifest in the world as actions. Isn't that right?"

Dr. Du Maurier gave a single, slow nod.

"So I've given him the choice," said Will. "He makes his choices, and I make mine. Our choices influence each other's choices, and each other's actions. But for now, we'll make those choices together, for now."

"That sounds like the foundation of a healthy relationship."

Will startled himself--even Dr. Du Maurier gave a series of rapid blinks--with a burst of laughter, machine gun loud in the silence of her room.

\-----

The property line did look capped by a sea of clouds.

It was a blue-sky day, cool and a little windy. Not ideal picnic weather, but Hannibal nonetheless packed a basket. Will carried the blanket under his arm. The dogs roved around them. Harvard ran off at one point and came back with a stick, which Chester immediately wanted.

Will sprawled on the blanket. Every little gust of wind showered petals on them like snow. It did show up as light spots on Clay's dark fur. The dogs trotted around with their tongues lolling and wrestling with Harvard's stick, except for Mal, who was old and wanted to lie on the blanket with the humans, and Buffy, who wanted to snuggle up to Hannibal's leg.

Hannibal unpacked their lunches: mysterious flat packages wrapped up in cloth; a glass container of the season's first strawberries, already sliced; a bottle of sake, and two small sake cups. Will had stayed out of the kitchen that morning, so as to be out of Hannibal's way as he made dramatic clanks and clings. "Whatever that is, I hope you don't expect me to eat it with chopsticks," Will said.

"It's permissible to eat with your hands." Hannibal opened one of the cloths, revealing a flat black box. He removed the lid and handed it to Will.

The box turned out to be separated into compartments: in one were little bits of what looked like fried chicken; in another was what looked like sushi, some of it topped with seafood and some of it topped with pink stuff and some of it rolled in seaweed; and in the third were little brightly colored bits of Will had no idea what. Something edible, presumably.

Hannibal went round the box in a clockwise fashion. "Chicken karaage, temari sushi, rice balls topped with pickled cherry blossoms, grilled salmon rolls, and pickled daikon radish and carrots."

"Sounds delicious," Will said, though he wasn't sure about pickled cherry blossoms. But they did turn out to be delicious. Turned out he liked pickles from every country.

Attracted by the smell of food, some of the other dogs came nosing around. After Will and Hannibal pushed them away enough times, they gave up. Will munched on a bit of fried chicken and tried not to think about all the times his food hadn't been chicken. They'd gone down to the basement and gotten rid of all of it: Will had driven everything to the dump himself, along with other detritus and redundancies that neither of them wanted to store or sell or donate. It probably hadn't been visible or suspicious alongside Will's old, ratty, dog-chewed armchair or Hannibal's old curtains.

"What is it going to be like, after?" Will asked.

"What is it like now?" Hannibal asked.

"It feels good," Will admitted. "Easy, almost."

Hannibal finished eating one of his rice balls and put down his lunchbox. Buffy eyed it but stayed where she was, pressed against Hannibal's thigh. "Almost, but not quite. Which is just as well."

"Yeah." Will looked down at his own food. He could see that Hannibal had spent a great deal of time and care in its composition: the colors of the ingredients; the size and shape of each component; even the pickles had looked like they'd been arranged with tweezers to lie just so. "It's been a busy few months. Buying this house, then packing, moving, unpacking. Now we're just going to be living, and...what then?"

Hannibal stretched out his legs and leaned back on his hands. "You'll worry that I'm becoming bored. I'll resent that you don't trust me to keep my word. We'll fight."

Will swallowed.

"But," and here Hannibal smiled, faintly, "I find that I like being the focus of your attention."

"Even when we're fighting?" Will asked.

"Perhaps especially so." Hannibal picked up his lunchbox. "Neither of us knows what to do with things that come easily. If we find ourselves becoming complacent, I'm sure that one of us will upset the balance."

Will popped another rice ball in his mouth and chewed. The rice was sweet and slightly tangy; the flesh cool and firm. He looked at Hannibal out of the corner of his eye. Hannibal was smiling. "You, you mean. You'll upset the balance."

Hannibal beamed at him, content as a cat in the sun. "Europe is always an option."

Will gave him a look. He hoped it came across as a glare, but he suspected it was more long-suffering.

"You worry too much, Will," Hannibal said, and he ate another rice ball, continuing to smile. "You'd be much more comfortable if you relaxed with yourself."

\---end---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for joining me on this ride! I hope it was satisfying and enjoyable. I love you all. ♥

**Author's Note:**

> [coloredink.tumblr.com](http://coloredink.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [sumiwrites.com](https://www.sumiwrites.com/) (if you wanna check out my original work)


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